


Things Change

by wanderlust_and_rainbows



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, Multi, Regeneration, Time Lord Rose Tyler, but it's a lot of angst, in this house we love and respect women, its not all angst, no love triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlust_and_rainbows/pseuds/wanderlust_and_rainbows
Summary: Post Parting of Ways, Rose Tyler becomes a little less human.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It never made sense to me that Rose Tyler could still be entirely human after having the Time Vortex running through her head. So, here's how I thought it could be fixed. And Nine gets to stick around a little longer, because he will always have a special place in my (and Rose's) heart.

There weren’t a lot of things Rose remembered from the Bad Wolf station. She remembered cracking open the heart of the Tardis, heard it singing. She remembered the power, the way she destroyed the God of the Daleks and all of his worshippers, shredding their very atoms and leaving them less than dust. Not even the memory of existence. 

She remembered burning.

“I think you need a Doctor.”

The next time she woke up, the Doctor was in pain. He tried to laugh it off, made some silly joke about Barcelona, said things that sounded suspiciously like goodbye. He cried out in pain, told her not to come close. It was in that moment, that Rose heard the Tardis sing once again. She grabbed ahold of the rail, and as he was saying something that definitely was goodbye, she asked the Tardis to help him.

And it did.

She felt the Tardis reach out through her, reach out through him. She could hear the Tardis tell her what she was doing to save him, but Rose didn’t have the language to understand. However, the Doctor did.

“No, why are you doing this? This isn’t right. I can’t just-“ And then he collapsed.

Rose rushed forward, felt the Tardis falter, but the Doctor didn’t move. His head lolled to the side and some gold.. dust? Floated out of his mouth. Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, the Tardis started to free-fall. 

Rose hoisted herself up as well as she could, what with the shaking. She pressed all the buttons, twirled all the knobs, pulled all the handles, and it seemed to get only worse. After a shake that saw the Doctor slip halfway down the platform, Rose slammed her hand down on the console. “Help me!” Nothing happened. “Please!” 

There was one final shake that rocketed her into the railing, knocking the air out of her lungs, and Rose was sure that she would die there, her and the Doctor, crashing through space. She closed her eyes, and then with a loud bang the engine breaks came on and the Tardis stopped.

“Doctor?” She asked, shakily getting to her feet, and making it only a few steps before the pain in her chest caused her to fall back to her knees. She let out a groan and rubbed at her sternum, thinking about how hard she hit that rail. She crawled towards the Doctor, and put her head on his chest, listening to his hearts, which seemed in working order. “Doctor? Can you hear me?” She asked, putting her hands on his face, but he didn’t move. Rose was partially sure that he was dying, and entirely sure that it was somehow her fault.

There was a frantic knock on the Tardis door. “Rose!” Mickey’s voice shouted out at her from outside of the Tardis. “Mickey.” She whispered, relieved that the Tardis had apparently managed to park them home, rather than on some deserted planet in God-knows-what Galaxy.

Rose managed to get up and get to the door, throwing it open and collapsing into Mickey’s arms. He stunk like motor oil, but she couldn’t have been more okay with it. “Oh Mickey, it’s the Doctor. Something’s wrong with him, I can’t-“ 

Mickey’s arms were replaced by thinner ones in a blue tracksuit. “Mum!” She whispered. Rose’s knees felt weak, and she was shaking. She felt her mother smoothing her hair back from her head and she looked up into her mum’s eyes.

“Rose, what is it, honey? What happened?” They both looked to where Mickey had disappeared into the Tardis. “What did you say about the Doctor?”

Mickey appeared in the doorway, holding the Doctor the way you carry your mate when they’ve had to much to drink. “A little help with this, will ya?” He grunted, struggling under the Doctor’s weight, and Jackie took the Doctor’s other arm. They made their way to the flat, and Rose took a moment to close the Tardis door. She leaned her forehead against it, and took a deep breath. 

She was so worried that it felt like there was less room in her chest for air to fill her lungs.

After a few moments, she followed them up.

———

Rose didn’t want to leave him, but eventually Jackie convinced her that she and Mickey should go down to the shops, get it out of her head for a bit. After all, it’s not like Rose could do anything there.

“So what happened? Y’know, after you hijacked the Tardis?” Mickey asked, shoving his hands into his coat pockets, they were walking through the market, and Rose was absentmindedly staring at the goods, trying to think about getting her mother a nice Christmas present rather than the man she… Rather than think about the Doctor.

“I dunno.” She sighed. “I remember… bits and pieces. I know the Daleks are gone, I know that… I think it’s my fault, whatever’s wrong with the Doctor.” She looked up into Mickey’s eyes, and even though she knew it hurt him when she talked about the Doctor, she couldn’t help the tears that welled up. “I think he’s dying, because of something I did. And I don’t even remember what it was!” Mickey’s arms wrapped around her, and she sniffled, her eyes trained on the Brass band, which had stopped playing. ‘Mickey?”

One of the Santas lowered his instrument, and fired it at them like a gun. “Mickey!” Rose yelled, ignoring Mickey’s horrified Santa-related questions and grabbed his hand. “Run!” They pushed through the crowd of terrified shoppers, and Rose flagged a cab, practically throwing Mickey in it and then herself.

“What is it? What do they want?”

“I think they're after the Doctor, we’ve got to get back!”

———

One thing she really did not want to happen as soon as they got back to her mum’s flat was for a Giant Christmas tree to attack them. While Jackie and Mickey barricaded the room, Rose tried desperately to wake the Doctor. But not matter how much she shook him, he didn’t move. 

She put the Sonic Screwdriver in his hand and leaned down in his ear and whispered, “Help me.”

———

Feeder Fish were what the Doctor called them, and it didn’t take them long to see what the Fish had been swimming around. No idea what to do, Rose loaded up The Doctor, Mickey, and her Mum into the Tardis. The worst-case scenario had come about, and all Rose could think of was to keep the people she loved safe in a box, while the world went to hell around them.

Jackie had forgotten something, and Rose volunteered to go out and get it, only to find herself in the middle of a Sycorax ship, surrounded by hostile aliens and… Harriet Jones? She shook off the shock, and shouted for Her mum to close the door behind her before the Sycorax could get inside the Tardis. Rose would die before she let them get ahold of the most powerful ship in the universe, or the Doctor.

“You, Doctor, speak for this world.” The Sycorax hissed at her, pointing his finger in her face.

“I’m not the Doctor!” She protested, not wanting to have them find out later and think she was lying. She didn’t think that they were the particularly forgiving type.

“We see you, time traveller. We see your ship, we see your blood! Do not lie to us!” They shouted in their horrible growl. The staff poked into her chest and she was shoved back a few feet.

“She’s not lying.” A voice said from behind her, and she spun around. “You know how I know? Because I am the Doctor. Not anybody else, thanks.” There he stood, in the doorway of the Tardis, wearing a robe and borrowed jammies. Something he did not look particularly pleased about, especially as he stepped forward, shutting the Tardis door behind him. The Sycorax tried to speak, but the Doctor gave them an annoyed look and held up a finger. “Just a moment.” He got up close to rose and whispered. “Are you alright?” When she nodded, he looked a little like he didn’t believe her, but he continued. “What about me? Do I look any different?”

Rose smiled. “No, no. You look good, ears and all.”

“Uh huh, thought so.” He did not look very happy about that. “I’m gonna have to have a talk with the Tardis about that later, but right now I’ve got stuff to do.”

———

Sometime later, the Doctor was having dinner with Queen Victoria, when he felt a pain in his head. He stood up, ignoring his manners and the Queen as he gripped the table. “Something’s wrong with Rose.” He said, a cold sweat dripping down his back. He didn’t stop to question how he would know, he just ran.

He stopped at a cellar window, peaking in. He was relieved to see Rose unharmed, but he was much less happy about whatever it was in the cage that had her shaking. But Rose, his brave girl, was talking to it, her voice unwavering.

“You know something of the Wolf.” The creature said, hitting the bars of the cage, causing the household staff to shriek. He stopped speaking and tilted his head as he looked at her with jet-dark eyes. “You are the Wolf. I see you, girl. You stopped being human a long time ago.”

Neither the Doctor nor Rose had time to react to that, because the door to the cellar flew open, throwing the moonlight onto the creature, which promptly started changing from regular scary to very scary. The Doctor Ran in as Rose had the staff try to pull the chains that held them off the wall. He shot his hand out and used the screwdriver to weaken the metal just enough that the chains snapped. “Took you long enough.” She said, rubbing at her wrists.

“Oh, no one’s ever grateful.” He retorted, and the werewolf growled behind him. “Alright, time to go!” 

———

Rose knew they were supposed to be riding the high of being named Sir Doctor and Dame Rose, but as she sat inside the Tardis, fiddling with a loose thread in her overalls, she knew that there was a question she had been putting off for far too long. “Doctor?”

“Yeah?” Came a sound from somewhere below the floor, where the Doctor was tinkering with some wires. Rose was sure that the Tardis didn’t need nearly as much ‘tinkering’ as the Doctor did, but rather that it was his way of unwinding after adventures. Judging by the warm, fuzzy feeling the Tardis gave off after Rose thought that, Rose was pretty sure that the Tardis agreed, and that it liked the attention.

She wasn’t sure exactly how the Tardis was communicating with her, or why it chose to do so, but She was getting better at understanding what it wanted, or when it was trying to tell her something. 

Right now, it was telling her to get on with the conversation. It gave the impression that it wanted it to be like ripping off a bandaid. Get it done, get it over with. Don’t drag it out and make it worse.

“What happened to Jack?”

There was a bang, as the Doctor’s head smacked up into the floor, and Rose could practically imagine him rubbing his head, looking bewildered as he always looked when he accidentally did something clumsy. Any other time it would have been funny. Rose got off the bench and climbed down into the under-floor area. “Doctor, what happened to him? After the Daleks. Is he-“

“Dead?” The Doctor said. He wasn’t looking at her, which made her nervous. “I’m sure he’s alright. Probably in some bar out there, flirting away.”

“But what happened to him Doctor? If he’s out there, shouldn’t we find him?”

“No, we shouldn’t.”

“He’s our friend! We can’t just abandon him!” The fact that he didn’t turn around and look at her was starting to make her proper mad. She grabbed his arm and made him turn. “What, did he bore you? Are you gonna get bored of me and dump me off on some planet?”

“No, I’d never do that!”

“Then what changed?” The Doctor stepped back at her anger, looking like he’d been slapped. Her voice softened. “What happened, Doctor? What happened with the Daleks?”

He slid down along the console until he was sitting down amongst the wires and the circuitry, and a second later Rose sat down cross-legged next to him. All of a sudden, she was feeling very sorry about yelling at him. Not sorry about asking, but for letting herself get mean. 

She reached her hand out and clasped her fingers around his, turning his hand to look at the fingers, which were rough from work, with calluses and broken nails. They looked very human. “Tell me.”

He grabbed her hand harder, and looked into her eyes. And he told her. Told her how he had sent her away, how he expected to die there, how he had heard all the humans die below, how he was prepared to kill all of earth in order to kill off what remained of the Daleks. Or at least he thought he was. He found out too late that he couldn’t do it. The Dalek Emperor had asked him, Coward or Killer, and he made his choice. 

Then Rose had come, the time vortex swirling around and in her, an abomination. She was burning from the greatest power in the universe, and she used that power to Destroy the Daleks root and stem. She brought Jack back to life. It was going to kill her. And it was his fault. 

Rose saw the far-away look in his eyes and squeezed his hand. It took a long time for him to squeeze back. And he smiled at her, and kept going. So, as the fire raged in her head, frying her from inside, he took it into himself, and released as much of it back into the Tardis as he could. But it wasn’t enough. What was remaining should have killed him, he should have regenerated, become an entirely different person. But for whatever reason, the Tardis made a different decision, had hijacked his regeneration and reversed it. And it wasn’t giving him an answer as to why. 

Rose bit her lip and looked down. She wasn’t sure how to tell him that she was responsible for that. So she leaned over and kissed the Doctor on his forehead. “I think it’s time to bring Jack home.”

———

They found him in 1925, In a bar in Berlin, where he was somehow managing to flirt with the bartender, the cabaret singer, and two waiters at the same time. And boy, he was not happy with the two of them.

He had very politely said goodbye to the very regretful folks that had been hanging off his every word and would have liked to hang off of some other parts of him as well. He had waited until they were inside of the Tardis to chew them, mostly the Doctor, out about leaving him on the Satellite. He made sure to tell them about how he’d managed to get back to earth at exactly the wrong time, hoping that maybe they would be looking for him. He’d stopped hoping about the time that he realized that he had couldn’t die.

“I’m so sorry.” Rose said, and told him that she would understand if he wanted nothing to do with them anymore, but she was crying while she said it. Behind her, the Doctor stood with his arms folded, careful to avoid Captain Jack’s eyes by watching Rose instead. And even though the Doctor wasn’t looking, he could tell that Jack was crying, too.

And he stayed.

———

They were on earth when Rose started to realize something was wrong. The three of them had picked up Mickey and popped in to a restaurant in the United States, just a normal little fifties-themed diner in the modern day, halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, out in the middle of nowhere. They ate burgers and drank their milkshakes, telling stories around the table of far off planets, and Mickey demonstrating his new hacking skills that he’d been quietly using to hold certain government officials accountable for their not-so-good actions. Even the Doctor was impressed, though he would never say it to Mickey’s face.

They finished off their meal, and were heading out back behind the restaurant to look at the ‘dinosaur’ park, with it’s little ponds and sculpted dinosaurs, it was charming, if a bit odd. The Doctor had them roaring as he critiqued the designs, sounding utterly serious. 

Rose was laughing as she felt a weird thump in her chest. She stopped laughing, rubbing at the ache the thump had left, trying to be subtle about it. Lucky no one had noticed. But she couldn’t hold back a little groan when it happened again, and was faced with the looks of three men who were used to very minor problems secretly being much much worse. “Heart burn.” She said, giving a laugh at their expressions. The Doctor made a joke about weak human bodies, and Rose very patiently endured their teasing, even when Mickey suggested they ought to start carrying peptobismol on the Tardis.

———

The next time something happened, they had just gotten back from towing a stranded cargo ship back to it’s home planet and the resultant celebration the appreciative crew had insisted they sit through. The celebration had involved some very interesting drink concoctions, so by the time they actually managed to step back into the Tardis doors, they were far too tipsy to be flying anywhere that night. They made a mutual decision to park where they were and sleep it off.

Rose had been walking down the stairs, carefully of course, to her room, when in one instant, she felt both the thump in her chest and a sudden searing pain in her head. She didn’t remember falling, just being on the ground, and had an idea that the Tardis had done something to keep her from getting too hurt on the way down, especially since she could hear concern pulsing through the Tardis. “No- wait don’t get-“ She tried to tell the Tardis, but just a few seconds later, she heard very familiar footsteps running her way. She plunked her throbbing head back down on the floor and covered her eyes with her arm. “Of course you got him.”

“Rose?” The Doctor asked, kneeling down beside her. She felt his hand on her face, trying to pry her eye open to check her pupils, but she batted him away.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She protested, trying to ignore what she thought was turning into a wicked pre-hangover. “ ‘just drank too much.”

“How far down the stairs did you fall?” When she didn’t respond, he let out a chuckle. “Don’t know, do you?”

“’s fine. Tardis caught me.”

“What? Oh you are right drunk you are, c’mon.” She felt herself being lifted off the floor and she leaned into the Doctor’s warm grasp, surprised just how strong he was. Especially since he had participated in the celebration just as much as she had. 

She may have dozed off a bit, and woke back up again when she felt herself being tucked into bed. Before he could walk away, she reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don’t feel good. Stay with me?” Rose wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but she kept her eyes closed as he settled down on the bed next to her, above the covers. He never let go of her hand.

———

The Doctor had been aware something was different about Rose for a while now, but it hadn’t been anything bad, so he’d disregarded it. He’d see her stop, hand on the Tardis console or rail or wall, like she was using it to listen to something or someone. He’d catch her, holding her chest or rubbing her temples, but every time she’d smile at him and act like nothing was wrong, so he chose not to worry, because worry was so so much worse.

He was starting to figure that maybe he ought to have started worrying a long time ago.

Every little cough, every sniffle, made him anxious. Humans were so very delicate, it was hard to tell what was minor and what would turn out to be fatal. He’d been unaware of just how invested he was in this particular human until he started thinking that maybe he wouldn’t get to have that much more time with her.

So one day, when he saw her eyes roll back and her body fall limp to the ground, there was a moment when both of his hearts stopped. Jack got there first, put her on her side and lifted her head into his lap as she started to seize. The Doctor, for all his title, found himself useless, his knowledge of all human medicine completely flew out of his head. All he could do was watch, his mouth dry.

It felt like a thousand years, and he would know what that felt like, went by before she finally stopped shaking. She blinked groggily at them and tried to get up but she was still so weak that neither of them were willing to let her try. Jack, who was still holding her close to him gave the doctor a serious look. “Hospital.” His voice was far, far too calm. The Doctor knew exactly how he felt.  
They landed in front of the hospital, making a strange little group. One girl desperately insisting that she was fine, a man that looked like the earth had fallen out from under him, and another man who looked ready to kill anyone that would so happen to delay them.

Under any other circumstance, the Doctor would probably pity the poor young resident, Jones, that was tasked with checking over Rose. The Woman did her best to ignore the men, her kind eyes fixed on her patient, chatting as she put the stethoscope in her ears. “This may be a bit cold..” She said, listening to Rose’s heart beat. “Deep breath, good.” Apparently satisfied, she moved to the other side, and froze. She listened for a few seconds, and straightened, giving Rose a polite smile. “Everything sounds fine, if you’d give me just one moment.”

She walked away, her footsteps just a little too fast. The Doctor and Jack exchanged a look and followed behind, with a quick “Don’t go anywhere” to Rose, who folded her arms and huffed. They caught up to Jones, who was starting to look a little deer-in-the-headlights, and the Doctor, very gently, so as not to scare the poor women, asked her what she heard that had her looking for a more experienced doctor. 

She confessed that she thought something was wrong with her stethoscope. It was echoing weird, made it sound like there were two hearts beating. She was embarrassed about it, but she just wanted to grab a different one before going on with more tests. Relieved, the two men walked back to Rose’s cot, but the Doctor was a little less ready to believe that it was faulty equipment. Two hearts… 

“Where do you two get off thinking you can just go swanning off while I’m trapped here in a nightgown with my backside out for the whole world to see.” Rose was complaining when they made it back, looking more mortified than angry.

“Well, it is a good backside.” Jack quipped and slung himself down the wrong way on a seat, and was very careful to not look at the Doctor’s glower at the comment.

Rose no doubt had something to snark back, but she was interrupted by Jones, who came into the room with a lab chart that she was looking at. “Well, Ms. Tyler, we just got your blood work back, and the labs show some low Sodium. I’d still like to do some more tests, but my guess is that was what caused the seizure. Have you been having any medical treatments recently?” Rose shook her head. “What about your diet, have you been monitoring what you’ve been eating recently?” Rose gave her boys a look. Couldn’t tell the nice doctor that most of the food she’d been eating had been Alien, and who knows exactly what’s in that? “Right then, no more fad diets for you. I’ve seen it before, young girls desperate to look like the models on the telly.. Don’t even notice they’ve gotten sick until they're in the hospital. We’re gonna do a few tests and get some fluids in you, and I expect you’ll be good to go.”

Three hours and multiple different brain scans later, and Rose was cleared from the hospital. The Doctor couldn’t help his relief, even as he snagged a jar of salt from the Hospital’s cafeteria. Humans. Such a delicate body to maintain. One little chemical suddenly becomes enough to throw the whole world off kilter.

———

Rose knew that wasn’t it, though. She waited until her boys stopped hovering, which took longer than she’d hoped, even with the pretty doctor’s all-clear, and made her way to one of the many weird little rooms she’d discovered on the Tardis. This one was hardly more than a meter squared, with shimmering ‘mirrors’ on all the walls, and the ceiling stretched up higher than Rose could see, which gave her vertigo so she avoided looking. 

God Know’s what it’s original purpose was, but Rose had found it gave her a good way to talk to the Tardis. It was private, and also the Tardis’s thoughts seemed clearer here, as if the room were closer to her mind then other parts of the ship.

Rose sat down cross-legged on the floor, and spent a few moments looking at her hands before examining her reflection in the mirror. She always looked a little different here, and she supposed that the mirrors tended to show more than how you looked physically, but also your heart, too. Rose didn’t like that every time she came in, her reflection changed, looked less human. It scared her.

There was something swirling around her, floating just an inch or so off the skin, a gold glow that Rose knew wouldn’t really be there if she were to look down. Her head was lit up like from behind, or at least the swirly things got brighter there. And her eyes… They scared her the most. They were very much not human.She leaned closer to the mirror. Where there used to be pupils, there was now what looked like gold liquid, that gave off the fumes that caused the smokey glow about the rest of her body. 

“Do you know what’s wrong with me?” Rose asked the air, knowing the Tardis would hear her, but just because it heard didn’t mean that it would answer back.

The silence lasted so long that she started to think that it would be one of those times, where she would feel silly for trying to have a conversation with a semi-sentient ship that wasn’t interested in conversing. But, she felt the Tardis stir itself, and it talked the way it always did, feelings, pushed physically through the skin. Distinctly alien. 

The Tardis gave off the impression that.. it had an idea, but wasn’t sure enough to give an answer just yet.

“Alright. Do you know why this is happening to me?”

The Mirror shivered in front of her, and Rose saw herself, cloaked in energy from the Time Vortex, the Doctor knocked back in horror in front of her. What have you done?

_I looked into the Tardis, and the Tardis looked into me._

_You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose! No one’s meant to see that!_

_This is the Abomination!_

The scene abruptly dissolved in front of her eyes, but she could still hear it, banging around in her head. Faster and faster, until the words ran together, shrieking like demons, overlapping each other, competing for which would break her first.

_I am the Bad Wolf, You’ve got to stop this! You’re gonna burn! ,protected from the False God.You Are Tiny.EverythingmustcometodusttheTimeWarEnds_

Stop.

_You’ve done it, now stop!_

Stop it!

_The Power’s gonna kill you, and it’s my fault!_

Make it stop!

_I can see it, all that is. All that was. All that ever could be._

Please don’t-

_My head. It’s killing me._

_I think you need a Doctor._

“Stop it!”

A whisper. _Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?_

Rose was panting, holding her ears, hunched on the ground. It took her a few minutes to realize she was fine, her head didn’t hurt, her heart wasn’t even beating fast. It was the first time in months that she felt fine. She opened her eyes slowly, waiting for the fear to come back, but as the light entered her eyes, nothing happened. She found herself staring at her lap, a little incredulous. She let out a giggle.

Finally, she looked up. Her reflection was an explosion, stopped in the middle, sparks slowed as they shot out in all directions. Her skin was on fire, like she was burning from the inside. “Am I going to be okay?”

And this time, there was no answer.

———

At Mickey’s behest, the wonder-trio made their way to a little high school where Mickey insisted there was something iffy going on. They met Sarah-Jane, and Rose was forced to confront the idea that she might not get to be with the Doctor forever, and the Doctor was forced to remember that one day Rose would age and die.

“They’re all but extinct, and you stand before me, one of the last vestiges of that great race. An old man and a half-bred mutt, all that’s left.”

He was so insistent that the Doctor would join him, and by all of the Gods in the universe it was close, the idea of bringing them back, everyone that he had lost, bring back the Timelords. He almost did it.

It was Sarah Jane, one of the many people he had failed, that stopped him. “No. The Universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love.”

She was right.

They did what they do, they stopped the Krillitane, the Doctor rebuilt K-9, and the Tardis went away, plus one Very Annoying addition to the mix. They stood inside the Tardis, Rose and Jack chatting with each other about one thing or another, and Mickey standing nearby looking a little lost. Not that the Doctor thought that was anything new.

But what did he mean? Who was the ‘half-bred mutt’, and where in the Universe were they? If they were Timelord, even if it was just the smallest of a fraction, why could he not feel them?

———

Jack had declined this particular adventure, saying something about meeting an old friend about something, so when Mickey, Rose, and the Doctor, ended up on a stranded spaceship with links through time and space to old France, it was just them. And Madame Du Pompadour.

“The parts are not compatible.”

“What?”

“The parts are not compatible.”

“I don’t get it.” Not that Rose was complaining. She really didn’t want to end up as bits wired to other bits. 

“We require human parts.”

“I am human!” Why is she arguing?

“The parts are not compatible.”

———

It was actually Mickey that put it all together. He’d seen it, how Rose was different. She made connections faster, her mind kept pace with the Doctor’s wild ramblings, sometimes completing the end of his sentences for him. When Mickey grabbed her hand, he realized it was cool to the touch. Her pulse, fluttering in her wrist was far far too fast to be human.

He wondered, did she choose to change, to leave him behind, or did the Doctor make the choice for her?

———

The others didn’t have the luxury of time to figure it out.

They were running from rogue Barilions that had commandeered a Medical ship when Rose’s ankle had twisted under her. The Doctor had turned around to grab her when the blast from the Barilion gun went through her chest. The Doctor was 900 years old, and knew how time was supposed to pass, but watching her go down, felt like 900 more.

Jack blasted the Barilions back, yelling. He grabbed Rose by the arm, and shouted for Mickey to grab the other. The Doctor ran ahead, grabbing the Tardis door and holding it open. They were just behind him, carrying her in front of the quickly-approaching hoard. “Lay her out on the floor, now!” The Doctor shouted, shedding his jacket. He kneeled next to her, and stopped. All that blood.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone he loved die.

He scrunched up the Jacket in his fist and pressed it against the hole that was far, far too big. It wouldn't be enough. He felt a hand on his face. Rose. She was looking at him, her breath ragged, in pain. He let go of the Jacket and grabbed her hand. 

They hadn’t had enough time together.

He loved her, and it was all over too soon.

“Doctor.” She whispered. “It’s fine. It’s not that bad, right?”

“Yes,” He said. “You’re gonna be okay.” 

He had lied to her before. It had been to save her life. He didn’t know why it hurt so much to lie to her now.

“My head…” She whispered. “It’s killing me.”

Her head wasn’t injured. “I think you need a Doctor.” He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. She was dying.

He saw the fires in her eyes. 

“Get back.” He looked at Jack and Mickey. “Get back now!” He stood up and pushed them back. Just as Rose exploded into a raging inferno. 

———

_Half-bred mutt._

_This is the Abomination!_

_Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Doctor?_


	2. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post regeneration, emotions are high. An old relationship ends, and Rose and the Doctor deal with the aftermath of Change.

The Explosion died down, and Jack grabbed the fire extinguisher and started putting out the little fires that had sparked up around the Tardis. The Doctor, mute, wondered when exactly one of his companions had brought it on board. It was a good idea. He was surprised he hadn’t thought of it.

There was a deep silence that no one wanted to break. The Doctor knew that Jack understood what had just happened, he’d told him once before about it because Jack was immortal. Jack deserved to know that the Doctor wouldn’t leave him behind. The humans, he hadn’t told. Mickey didn’t need to know, it wasn’t his business. Rose… It had hurt the Doctor to know that she would age and die while he just regenerated. So he hadn’t told her.

He supposed maybe now that it was a mistake.

Especially since he had no idea why Rose had just regenerated in front of him.

She was still lying on the floor, with her dried blood pooled around her. It looked like it had been baked into the metal. Her face was obscured from the Doctor’s view, and he was trying to keep it that way as long as possible. Regeneration meant change. And everything had been so perfect.

He knew, however, that whoever Rose became, he’d still love her.

The Doctor started to edge forward towards her, but he felt two hands push him roughly back. “What did you do!” Mickey shouted. “What did you do to her!”

“Hey, Hey!” Jack abruptly dropped the extinguisher on the floor with a bang and wedged himself between the two of them, his hands on both of their chests to hold them away from each other. “Settle down!”

“I didn’t do anything!” The Doctor yelled back. Or at least he didn’t _think_ he did anything.

“Then what the hell just happened? Right, cause Rose is human and whatever the hell that was it wasn’t human. So what did you do to her!” Mickey tried to move forward again, and the Doctor could see the tears in his eyes. Mickey didn’t understand what had just happened. Maybe he thought Rose was dead.

He could remember the way he acted the last time he thought Rose had died. He hadn’t been kind, either.

“Why are you all yelling?” A grumpy voice came from behind the console, just out of sight, and they all stilled. The Doctor’s hearts skipped a beat and he exchanged a look with Jack, who dropped his hands.

“Rose?” The Doctor asked gently, walking slowly around the console. Rose was facing away, using a rail to pull herself up. Blonde. He could see that she was still blonde. The same height, at least. That’s good. He liked her height.  
She was still unsteady, and when her knees buckled under her, the Doctor’s instincts took over and he rushed forward to catch her.

Her face turned towards him and the Doctor’s breath caught in his chest. It was the same face that he’d first seen years ago in the basement of some silly little London shop, surrounded by aliens, afraid for her life but not afraid of him.. The same brown eyes, the same upturned nose. She was still the same. Still his Rose.

———

“Did you know?”

They were in Rose’s room. She’d been awake on and off for the last couple of hours. Each time Mickey thought she would be up for good, that gold dust would fly out of her mouth and she’d be back out again. This time, though, she’d managed to be awake for a full hour. Mickey didn’t tell her that he’d been by her side the whole time. He also didn’t tell her that he couldn’t bring himself to hold her hand, not even when she was asleep.

“Did I know what?” She asked. She was standing in front of a mirror, looking at her face. Every once and a while she would touch the glass and then her skin, as if making sure she was really there.

“That you were changing.” Mickey’s heart was breaking, and the woman he loved wasn’t even looking at him. “That you were leaving me behind. Becoming like the Doctor.”

“I didn’t know.” She said, but she still didn’t turn around. “I thought I was dying, Mickey. The Doctor said that looking into the Time Vortex would kill me, and when I started… When things started going wrong, I thought it was catching up to me, what I’d done. Delayed reaction, that sort of thing. I didn’t want to tell anyone because if I did it would be real.” She stopped talking for a few moments, and finally, she turned and faced him kneeling on the floor in front of where he was sitting. “But I didn’t leave you behind, Mickey.”

Mickey kissed her. He remembered everything. He remembered going to the same Primary School together, the fights they got in to, scrapping about in the schoolyard. He remembered her, him and Shireen, older, going on a school trip up to the Tower of London. Rose had laughed at him as he squawked, imitating the crows, and her laughing even harder when Shireen said she couldn’t tell the difference from how he normally sounded. He remembered Jimmy Stone, the first boy that broke Rose Tyler’s heart. He remembered holding her while she cried. She’d given up a bright future for a boy too stupid to know how much she was worth. He remembered Rose kissing him first, surprising him while they were playing video games in her mother’s living room. He remembered the loving friendship they had, how inseparable they were. When they started dating, it was as natural as breathing.

He remembered the first time he lost her to the Doctor. She’d run away from him like he was nothing, straight into the alien ship. He’d held out hope for her. He’d hoped even when Jackie, the woman that was damn near like a mum to him told the world that he must’ve murdered the girl he loved. He hoped, and she came back. But she hadn’t been the same Rose. Not even then. She’d come back different, a whole Universe that Mickey couldn’t see behind her eyes.

They’d gone again, and again, and again until Mickey managed to go with them. Rose was never anything but kind, but she was so distant. The past they had was still there, but he couldn’t touch it. She’d been changing for so long that he hadn’t realized just how much until it was too late.

He broke the kiss off. “Yes, Rose, you did.”

———

Rose and Jack were staring at each other over the Doctor’s shoulder as he fiddled with the sonic screwdriver. He was kneeling about two feet in front of Rose, and was trying to get the screwdriver to cooperate so he could finish the full-body scan that he’d started. It buzzed and flickered, and the Doctor let out an ‘ah-ha’, and resumed, starting from her abdomen and slowly scanning down to her toes. 

Rose was struggling to not role her eyes. Jack looked like he was having the time of his life. 

He winked at her and she stuck her tongue out at him.

Jack’s face lit up and Rose opened her mouth to stop whatever tongue-related comment she knew was coming before he had the chance to say it when- “Will you two stop it already?” The Doctor said, popping up from the kneel with surprising speed. He jog-walked over to the screen on the console and Rose, Jack and Mickey followed him. They stared over him at the screen, where the Doctor looked like he… might be plugging in numbers? Who’s to say? 

“Well, what’s it say?” Mickey asked.

“Body temperature of 15 degrees… Bypass-able respiratory system… Two hearts, beating at 170 per minute…” The Doctor looked like the world stopped moving under him, and for a few moments he just stared at the words on the screen. He blinked twice and came back to himself. “Rose Tyler, you are the picture of perfect Time Lord health.”

“But I don’t understand. That can’t be right, I’m human.” Rose protested.

“Not according to my readings, you’re not.”

Rose stepped closer to him and put a hand on his arm to turn him around. “You’ve met my mum and my dad. You saw me when I was a baby! I grew up, went to school. I’m human.” Her voice was desperate, like it wasn’t just the Doctor she was trying to convince.

He looked down at her and his tone was gentle. “I didn’t say that you didn’t start that way. Time Lords became what we are because we were exposed to small bits of the Time Vortex over billions of years. You had the whole thing running through your head. When I took the energy out of you, there must have been some left, growing like…” He stopped, not having the words.

“Like a cancer?” She asked.

“Is that what you think it is?” 

“No.”

———

Mickey couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d asked the Doctor to take him home. It was all too much for him. The Tardis landed in the estates, and he stepped out of it, his bag over his shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this, Mickey.” Rose said from behind him. She was in the doorway, watching him. But she didn’t follow.

Despite the fact that he knew he shouldn’t, he looked back at her. “I have to Rose, I came for you. And you’re not the same you that you used to be.” He scuffed the ground with his foot. “I won’t tell your mum about any of this. I’ll just say that I got tired of traveling. Besides, she deserves to hear the truth from you, in person.”

Then he turned around and walked away. “Goodbye Mickey Smith.” Rose whispered, and shut the Tardis door.

———

It wasn’t often that the Doctor got yelled at, unless it was Rose doing the yelling and even then he found that she only yelled for a good reason, but he certainly didn’t get yelled at by his ship.

“Stop doing that,” He grouched as two wires that by all rights should go together refused to even touch each other. They made a high-pitched ringing noise and flung out of his hands onto the floor. He stared at them, and he could feel the wires watching back. Taunting him.

The Tardis pushed it’s thoughts at him. He’d been with it long enough that it’s thoughts were clear as day, even though it didn’t use words. It’s language was similar to old Galifreyan, but even more ancient, singing and sensations rather than the deliberate formation of sounds.

And by the many gods, it was actually yelling at him.

It was angry at him. For… For Neglecting? Yes, for Neglecting Rose. Or at least that’s how the Tardis had put it. They’d been sitting stationary every since Mickey had left, and in those few days, Rose had kept to herself, alone in her room. The Doctor had tried to reason with the Tardis that if Rose was alone, it was her own doing. He shouldn’t have to hunt her down. If she needed to talk with him, she could come find him.

The next time he tried to pick up the wires they shocked his hands.

He dropped them on the ground with a huff. “What exactly do you want me to say to her, huh?”

The Tardis threw images at him. The first time he’d seen Rose Tyler, Blaidd Drwg written on a Cardiff wall, Her body lit up with the energy of the Time Vortex, her lips in his ears whispering ‘help me’, the Krillitane spitting half-bred mutt like an insult, her body exploding in regeneration, the scan showing her two hearts. 

It showed him the way he felt when he realized he wasn’t the last of the Time Lords.

_Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Doctor?_

———

“How long did you know?”

Rose flung her head up and looked at the doorway. She’d been reading, or at least trying to. She’d gone to the library trying to find something to occupy her mind, but no matter which way she had turned, she’d come across this same book. Deciding that the Tardis had probably been trying to tell her something, she’d grabbed it, but it was written in the circular language that was all over the Tardis console. Sometimes, if Rose focused hard enough, it felt like she should be able to understand but mostly it just gave her a headache. “Wha-“

The Doctor was leaning on the doorway, his arms crossed. “How long did you know that you were changing, Rose?” He took a deep breath. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

Rose closed the book and set it down on the bed before getting up. “I didn’t know what I was changing into, or I would’ve told you.” She said, looking up into his eyes even though she stayed on the other side of the room. “I swear.”

The Doctor didn’t say anything back.

Rose sighed. “When I had the seizure. I hadn’t been feeling well before and… Well after that I went to this room in the Tardis with a bunch of mirrors. The Tardis showed it to me a while back, just after Station Five, and I can talk to it there. I knew something was wrong, but when I asked the Tardis if it knew it didn’t have an answer.” She looked down at her feet. “I didn’t want you to worry if it was bad and there wasn’t anything we could do.”

“Rose Tyler.” The Doctor said, but Rose didn’t look at him. She heard him walk towards her and a moment later a hand on her chin tilted her face up until her eyes met his. “After all we’ve been through, I think I’m allowed to worry about you. You know you can tell me anything. Yeah?” He waited until she nodded and then he wrapped her up in a hug.

“‘Sorry,” She said into his chest.

He put his chin on her head and closed his eyes, and for a moment he felt all four of their hearts beat as one. “Yeah yeah, just don’t do it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to get a short chapter out before I go out of town.
> 
> Next Chapter will be less angsty and will return back to our regularly scheduled monster-of-the-week type programming. We will also see the return of Martha Jones, so stay tuned!


	3. Martha Jones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly-Timelord Rose and gang pick up a new companion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love and adore Martha Jones, so I was interested in doing a chapter from her point of view. We're so heavily invested in the Doctor and Rose's relationship, that I think it's neat to write it from an outside perspective.
> 
> Also, sorry for the long wait! I hit some m a j o r writers block with this one. Knew where I wanted to go, didn't know how I was going to get there. But at least it's finally happened, lmao.

Fate had brought them back to the first time someone had said ‘Rose’ and ‘two hearts’ in the same sentence. The Tardis had brought them there of it’s own accord. Just a hospital. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Which meant that there was definitely something out of the ordinary going on.

“Good Morning!” A pleasant voice said, and a Dr. Jones walked into the curtained-off area, her eyes trained on her clipboard. “I’m Dr. Jones. What seems to be the problem toda-“ She looked up and saw three people she recognized. Except this time, the man with the big ears was the one in the bed. Standing next to him was the girl she’d treated, and the handsome man who had scared her. However this time, none of them were remotely as serious, their eyes shining like there was a joke they were all in on.

“Oh,” The man with the big ears said. “Just got a bit of a cold. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

Martha Jones decided at that moment that she hated doing rounds in the clinic.

She especially started reconsidering her career path when she took her new stethoscope out and listened to Mr… Smith’s chest, and heard two heart beats.

———

They were on the moon. They were actually on the moon. Oh yeah, and there were aliens. With Rhino heads. No big deal.

Having sacrificed his blood, the Doctor went down, dying. As Martha Jones started CPR, she remembered why it was she had chosen to become a doctor. To help people. He survived, and the hospital, her patients, her coworkers and her friends were returned to earth. She followed that strange group out, asking questions that she fully expected them not to answer.

They walked into a blue box on the end of a corner, and Martha Jones, despite not being sure how they would all fit in there, followed them in. Her eyes bugged out of her head. “It’s bigger on the inside.” She said, and they nodded like it wasn’t even a big deal. “What does it do?”

It was the girl, Rose, that responded to her, her eyes warm. “It travels, in Time and Space. That’s what we do too, travel. Alien planets, Charles Dickenson, cat-people.” Rose bit her lip and smiled. “You could come with us, if you want.”

“Least we could do,” The Doctor said. “Considering as you saved my life and all.”

“And besides,” Jack gave a half-dark smile. “We need someone in here that can keep us human.”

———

The first place they took Martha Jones to was an alien planet, which she supposed was the obvious first-choice. It was gorgeous, with rising glass spires that sparkled in the sun. They looked, even up close, like they were solid, but the second you touched them, they dissolved into a glittering mist.

Martha Jones sat down on the edge of a hillside, watching the sun set through the glass. She had her chin resting on her knees and her arms folded around her legs. Despite the beauty, her mind was racing. She thought about her career, her family. She wondered that after all of this, if she would ever be able to go back and live her ‘normal’ old life.

There was a shuffling noise, and she looked up to see Captain Jack settle down next to her. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think it’s brilliant. Mad. But brilliant.” She let herself thump down into the grass. “I’m on an alien planet, that I got too by traveling on an alien spaceship with three aliens. It’s not really what I thought I would be doing this morning. But I couldn’t imagine trading this for the world.”

Jack laughed. “I know how you feel. I was born a couple of thousand years after you, so time travel and aliens are kind of old news to me. But with them…” His voice caught in his throat. “Well, there really aren’t words. But you’re wrong about one thing, I’m not an alien.”

“You’re not?” Martha sat up. “Sorry, I just assumed… I didn’t know you were human.”

“I started that way, not sure how much that statement applies to me now.”

“What happened?”

“We were fighting Daleks, millions of them, and they’re these big bad aliens, pure evil killing machines. And I died but Rose… She did something with the Tardis, and whatever it was that she did didn’t just kill the Daleks, she eliminated them from existence. And she brought me back to life using the Tardis’s power, but it went too far. I may be human, Martha, but I don’t age, and I can’t die.” Martha reached out and grabbed his hand, and he pulled his hand back, but he patted her shoulder to lessen the blow. “It’s not like I’m the only one that changed, so I can’t complain. Rose,” He nodded down at where Rose and the Doctor were both looking at the sonic screwdriver, reading whatever readings it was giving them. They were standing right next to each other, shoulders touching, heads tilted towards the other. “She was human when I met her. That trick with the Tardis, it broke her too.”

———

Jack had told Martha Jones that Rose had once been human, but she hadn’t entirely believed him. Until she saw the look in Rose’s eyes when she saw her very human, very dead father, living and walking free in an alternate universe.

She also knew that she would never forget the pain in Rose’s eyes when her other-mother died. Even the Doctor’s pain was there, though he was suffering less because Jackie died, and more because Rose was suffering. They may be aliens, but they were so very human.

When they went home, to their own universe that is, everyone was exhausted. Jack and Martha were standing next to each other silently. It was a nice silence, the kind where you knew the person so well that you didn’t have to use words to draw comfort from the other. When they’d first met, there had been the glimmer of something, an attraction that could have led to romance. But they’d both come to realize that they were perfectly suited to the relationship they already had. Soulmates, best friends. A team.

On the other end of the Tardis’s main room, Rose Tyler was sitting down on a bench, fiddling with her phone, torn between calling her real mother and not. It had been far too long since they’d spoken. Not since Rose had regenerated. Rose wondered if it would be wrong to call her, only because she’d watched her die.

The Doctor sat down next to her and waited for her to speak. She remembered once that the Doctor told her that Time Lords were supposed to feel each other, to some extent understand their thoughts. The bond they had when Rose was human was still there, but the Doctor’s thoughts were just as silent to her as they had been long ago. He told her that it was the same for him. He’d heard her, once. When her life was in danger. When she was with the Wolf. Not any time after.

Rose thought about her mother, the one that died and the one she couldn’t bring herself to face, and she wondered why she couldn’t do anything right. Not a good student, not a good daughter, definitely not a good girlfriend. Not even a good Time Lord.

The Doctor gave up on waiting for her to speak. “Are you alright?” He asked.

“No.” She whispered. “My mum died.”

“Ah.” The Doctor shifted his weight, leaning farther down into the bench, his legs crossed on the ground. He was silent for a moment. “She did die. But Jackie is still alive in our universe. The one that matters.”

“But that’s just it, Doctor. My mum in that universe died. But when we’re right where we should be, we still travel long into the future, long after my real one has been buried. She’s going to die one day, but I won’t.”

“That’s what humans do, Rose.” He didn’t look at her. “They live, they age, they die. They’re lives are fleeting, but what few years they do have they live far more than I could in a thousand, even with the universe at my fingertips. That’s why it’s so hard to love them.” For a brief second, his eyes flickered up towards her before flickering back away. “But it’s also why it’s impossible not to.”

———

“Do you think they know?” Martha Jones asked. She crossed her arms, and felt Jack’s shoulder bump into hers.

“He knows that he loves her.” Jack paused. “She knows that she loves him. But they’re both too dense to realize that the other feels the same.”

“Tragic,” Martha Jones said.

“Heartbreaking,” He retorted.

“And to think that we’re the ones that have to deal with it,”

“The longing looks,”

“The ‘platonic’ hand holding,”

“The tentative touches,”

“The meeting of gazes,” Jack laughed.

“The quick glance away,” Martha giggled back. Jack elbowed her and she elbowed him back. She then sighed. “They’ll realize it eventually. I just hope it doesn’t take too long.”

———

They were supposed to go take Tango lessons in the year 2739, in a satellite that orbited the earth, with glass windows facing the night half’s lit up side. The Doctor swore to them that it was the best place in the Universe to dance. Jack had leaned in and whispered in Martha’s ear. “Trust me, when those two are dancing, you won’t be looking at the view.”

Martha Jones felt real pretty, done up in a red silk dress with a long slit up the thigh, her hair slicked back and done in an up do. Jack, in a suit minus the jacket, gave her an appreciative nod before sticking his arm out for her to grab. When they stepped out onto the satellite platform, her breath felt like it got sucked out of her chest. It was gorgeous.

She supposed that by the 28th century that there wasn’t any green left. Or any freely available continents to develop on. Because there was not a single part of the earth other than the ocean that was not glittering. In some spaces, she could even see great big skyscrapers that must have been miles wide and tall, sticking up past the clouds. The moon, which was just on the edge of what was visible on the platform, had lights on it too. And there were massive ships bigger then the satellite going from between the two.

The doctor was leaning against a pillar, grinning at Martha’s reaction. If there was one thing that he never got tired of no matter how long he travelled, it was watching humans see something that they had never imagine could be possible for the first time.

There was a whisper that floated through the Doctor’s head. He knew the voice, the Tardis. She didn’t use real words often. And even when she did, she only spoke old Gallifreyan to him. Except for two words, that had merged with a human name. Bad Wolf. Rose.

He looked up to the Tardis door just as it opened. And there she was, his Rose. She was wearing a shimmering gold cocktail dress that barely reached mid-thigh. Her hair was hanging down around her face in natural waves, though she’d bleached her roots to match the rest sometime between when he’d stepped out of the Tardis and when she’d followed him. That should have taken a while, he wondered if the Tardis had done something to make it go a bit faster.

Her eyes caught his, and she smiled at him. He stepped up, suddenly feeling very inadequate in his jumper and leather jacket, but Rose didn’t seem to mind. Her eyes sparkled as she walked towards him, and he opened his mouth to say something, but her gaze caught something just up behind his shoulder and a grin split on her face. “Martha!” She gasped, walking straight past him. “You look beautiful!”

“Oh you too!” Martha gushed back. 

The two girls gushed at each other. Jack took one look at the Doctor’s bewildered face and laughed out loud, but before they could look at him, he swept Rose into his arms and flashed the Doctor a cheeky look. “I think I’ll have this dance.” And twirled away with her as she giggled.

“Well,” Martha Jones said, offering her hand to the Doctor. “We can’t let them show us up can we?”

“No,” He grinned back at her. “We can’t.”

The four of them danced all through the night, switching partners and alternating between dancing and watching the view. Finally, towards the end of the night, when the station approached where darkness met light, the Doctor and Rose took up the Dance.

Martha and Jack stood aside, leaning on a pillar together, to watch them dance. Jack was right, it was impossible to look at anything else. Martha remembered her mother’s favorite movie, about a woman larger than life, who at the end, as she was dying, did the tango with a man who had been there all her life. In the movie they were just like Rose and the Doctor, light and dark. Eyes only for each other.

———

To Martha’s eyes, the realization came far too late. They were on some sort of ship stranded out in the universe, fighting aliens that could pull the actual life out of you and trap it in little orbs. Not your soul, just the essence that kept the heart pumping and your lungs filling up with air. 

They’d found a way to stop them, by poisoning the orbs. However, as the Doctor finished poisoning the last one, one of the aliens reached out it’s clawed hand and as it’s dying act, it took the Doctor’s life.

Nearly instantly, he started to glow, like he was lit up from the inside. Jack grabbed Martha and pulled her back out of the way when she had rushed forward to do something, anything. But he didn’t stop Rose, who kneeled at the Doctor’s side. Martha watched Rose put her hands on both sides of the Doctor’s face, and she could hear Rose crying.

“It’s okay, Rose…” The Doctor whispered. “You know what happens next. I’ll be fine.”

“You might not be you, though.” She cried.

“We change, Rose. But feelings,” He reached up and touched her hand. “They stay.”

Rose sniffled, like she was holding back a sob. “I love you.”

There was a change on the Doctor’s face, like he heard something he couldn’t believe. His expression, underneath the glow that was starting to rage hotter, was filled with awe. “I love you too.”

Rose pressed her lips against his, and then ran back just at the moment that the Doctor exploded into flames.

———

Jack and Martha had decided to take a break from traveling. Jack had said he had some things to take care of, and Martha wanted to see her mum and put in a few days in at work just to get back to normal.

Or at least that’s what they said publicly.

In reality, they desperately needed to get away from the gushy-cute energy that the New Doctor and Rose radiated when they were together. And to think that Martha had once thought that the will-they-won’t-they was unbearable.

When they stepped out of the Tardis, it was a sunny Tuesday morning, technically the same day that Martha had first walked onto the Tardis. Even though that felt like it was eons back. It was bizarre, to look out at the Hospital after all she had seen, knowing that nothing had changed at all. 

Jack stretched next to her, and he looked down and gave her a smile. “You wanna see what I’m up to when I’m not traveling with the Doctor?”

“Not sure if that’s a good idea.” She said, but followed him anyways. 

They walked to what looked like just an average little home, but when they stepped in, they were greeted with the hum of technology and the buzz of serious conversation. She understood some of the lingo, alien names, hidden planets, etc. Martha Jones raised an eyebrow.

“Martha Jones,” Jack said dramatically, swinging his arms out and stepping into the hall. “Welcome to Torchwood.”

———

It was nearly approaching a week, the day that the Doctor had agreed to pick Jack and Rose back up, and Martha was walking home from work, her feet aching from standing up all day. But she loved it. She supposed that normal, tedious things suddenly became much more fun when your new normal was spaceships and rocket blasters and vampire-alien hybrids.

Her phone rang, and she pulled it out and flipped it open to check the name. It was Jack, and she picked it up, idly wondering at why he was calling. The voice on the other end was urgent, telling her to get to Torchwood immediately, to run.

Martha Jones’s eyes flew to the sky, where she saw Daleks, and heard the screams as people around her started realizing what was going on. Her eyes flickered, and she saw Cybermen.

And she ran.

———

The battle of Canary Wharf was long since over, and London was still struggling to get on it’s feet. Martha Jones spent nearly all her time at the hospital, tending to the injured, both from the actual battle and the ones that were hurt later on in the wreckage. 

It had been three months since either her or Jack had heard from the Doctor and Rose, though they knew that they had been at the battle. The Tardis hadn’t been seen any time since, and Martha knew that Jack had Torchwood keeping their eyes out for it. 

She was starting to worry about Jack. He was starting to become obsessive, like he was scared of the possibilities. When the list of the dead came out, including the names of very important people known only to Torchwood, Martha was always there with them. His eyes had scanned the paper, like they always did, going first to the pages with ‘D’, and then finding nothing, he would skip all the way to the back, and look at ’T’. 

Week four’s list he dropped to the floor, with himself shortly after as his knees collapsed under him. He stared blankly into the distance, like he wasn’t seeing anything. Martha grabbed the list from the floor, ignoring the hush of the Torchwood staff that had gathered to see what was going on. She flipped through the pages, nothing under ‘D’, and dread filled like a pit in her stomach as she kept flipping. There, under T, she saw it. “Tyler, Rose. b. Powell Estates, London 1986- d. Canary Wharf 2008.”

———

It was another three months later, when Martha Jones heard the whoosh of the Tardis engines. She bolted as fast as her legs could take her towards the noise. She got there just in time to see the Doctor as he stepped out of the door. “Doctor,” She gasped, grabbing at his jacket coat and spinning him halfway round to make sure he was real. “What happened, where were you, where’s Rose?” She blurted, not giving him time to answer between questions.

He looked down at her, though this time her eyes had to look just a little higher to meet his. She remembered that she’d only known this version of the Doctor for a short time, and she dropped her hands and stepped back.

Yes, she hadn’t known him long, but she could tell something was different. He didn’t walk on air. His eyes were half-cold, like he was trying for warmth but he just wasn’t quite getting there. When he gave her a half grin, like he was trying to reassure her, it slid almost immediately off his face.

Because he could tell she wasn’t buying it.

“Rose is trapped in that other universe, Martha.” He said. “She’s gone. And she’s not coming back.”


	4. The Parting of Ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second I knew I was combining my original fic (chapter one), with another loosely related one that at the time was just a vague dream in my head, this chapter was born to be a branch between the two. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I really hope you all enjoy reading it.

Rose knew the Doctor would be different. She’d prepared herself for it. She prepared for the worst case scenarios, that she wouldn’t like him, that he wouldn’t like her. One thing she hadn’t thought to prepare for was a Doctor that loved her.

She had thought… with the last one, that the feeling they had was mutual. But her Doctor had been so alien, so dark, that she could never be sure. She’d known how she felt and that, with the hope that maybe it was reciprocated, had been good enough for her. 

When he was dying, she couldn’t hold back anymore. She knew that saying it would risk it all. But she said it anyways. She would never forget the feeling, when he looked at her and told her that he felt the same. 

They’d only kissed twice in his lifetime, once when she was dying, and again when he was dying.

The Doctor had once told her that what surrounds a Time Lord at the moment of death, or just prior to or immediately after, had the potential to affect who the Time Lord became in their new life. Her Doctor had been born in the aftermath of war, with the weight of his people’s deaths on his shoulders.

This new Doctor, had been born in love.

It almost startled her, the change. It wasn’t the face that took her back, but rather the new personality. She could tell he had the same soul, but it was like he had a new spirit. He smiled so brightly, looked at her like she was filled with all the good in the universe. He laughed easier, teased. He was physically affectionate, easily grabbing her hand or touching her shoulders as he walked by, bouncing with nearly every step.

To love and be loved back with such an intensity, It was nearly overwhelming.

She caught the Doctor’s eyes over the Tardis console, and he smiled at her, and she smiled back. Rose Tyler couldn’t imagine anything better.

———

The first place they’d gone after dropping off Jack and Martha back home, was earth. Sort of earth. 5 billion years away from when they’d started in the morning, on what was actually an entirely different planet. Rose Tyler listened happily as the Doctor recited facts at lightening speed, rattling off the 15 ‘“new’”s in New New York.

They had lied down on his coat, taking in the sun on a grassy hill overlooking the city. It didn’t take long for them to get sucked into adventure. The cat nuns were one thing, Cassandra O’Brian was another.

“Oh, ‘last human’ my behind.” Cassandra growled from inside of Rose. “Look at that, two hearts. I’m beating out a rumba.”

Cassandra hadn’t known this new Doctor, she underestimated him. Took one look at the new pretty face, the easy smile, and decided that he was a love-struck idiot. Stupid enough to get rid of.

He figured it out. Fast. Which was unfortunate because Cassandra hadn’t thought he would figure it out at all.  
The last Doctor was terrifying, but he was tempered by Rose’s kindness. This new Doctor was kind, but he was terrifying because of his love for Rose.

Cassandra suddenly realized that she was standing between the most dangerous creature in the universe and the thing he loved.

Then when they were running from those hideous creatures and Cassandra jumped into the Doctor instead, she learned that the Doctor wasn’t the only thing that she should fear. She looked through the Doctor’s eyes, could feel the way he felt. He saw Rose as this blindingly pure thing, beautiful, gentle, the center of his vast universe. But Cassandra knew better.

Rose Tyler was dangerous. 

She may be a good person, but Rose Tyler could tear the world apart if it meant protecting the people she loved. She’d done it once before, took on the greatest power in the universe and eliminated the God of a race of monsters. Cassandra could see the way Rose looked at her as she inhabited the Doctor’s body, and knew that Rose would find a way to stomp her out like a bug, if she didn’t find a way to get out of him.

When they survived, Cassandra was almost grateful to inhabit the dying body of her half-life servant. If only to get away from them, but she was surprised when they took her home. She died, seeing the human she’d been so many years ago. 

She was so glad. They had been kind.

———

When they showed up in fifties London, it had almost been a game to them. The Doctor and the Bad Wolf, playing. They had laughed, pulled that obnoxious twit of a man this way and that as they tried to solve the mystery of Magpie and the people loosing their faces. 

They were having so much fun, it would have been so easy to forget to be human.

And they likely would have done it had it not been for the fact that Rose’s face was stolen. She didn’t really remember what had happened after meeting the Wire’s gaze, just the voice, and everything slipping away. “What a pretty little girl,” It had crooned at her.

She, at some point while floating in that void, came to the realization that the Doctor was there. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, could only feel him and his rage. It was the first time she had actually sensed this Doctor’s anger. He’d been so careful to hide it from her.

Though, she thought it was unfortunate that she herself didn’t get to watch him destroy the Wire.

———

They stood on a planet, watching manta-ray like creatures swim through the air at sunset. The Doctor had turned to her, an almost puzzled expression on his face. “How long are you going to travel with me?” He’d asked.

She smiled at him. “Forever.”

And he smiled back, because they both knew that when she said forever, it actually meant forever. The Doctor would never have to be alone again.

———

Rose Tyler looked down on the black Dalek, not a single ounce of fear in her body. She was not just a Time Lord, she was a time traveller, she was the Bad Wolf, she was human. She would never be afraid. “If you survived the Time War, don’t you want to know what happened?”

“You will place your hand-“

“Don’t you want to know what happened to the Emperor?” She smiled, smug.

“The Emperor survived?” Dalek Khan asked, it’s scream-voice sounded like it may even have felt emotion.

“Till he met me.” Rose looked directly into the eyestalk. “Cause if these are my last words, then you’re gonna listen. I met the Emperor, and I took the Time Vortex and poured it into his head and turned him into dust. D’you get that? The god of all Daleks, and I destroyed him, ha!” She laughed. “And if there’s one of us that’s going to be afraid, it’s you.”

———

Her mum may have been happy to choose this universe, but Rose, trapped, felt as though her heart was breaking every second she was there. She had seen the Doctor’s face as she slipped, hurtling towards the void. The fear, the anguish. The disbelief.

She’d been so afraid she hadn’t had time to feel anything else. Until her father grabbed her, taking her to safety. Taking her away from the man she loved.

It’d been months since she’d gotten trapped in the alternate Universe. She could hardly move, would barely eat. Her hearts ached in her chest, and she could hardly breathe. 

Every once in a while, someone would come for her. Her mum, her father. A Torchwood representative. Slowly, she started to adjust, stepping out of the house. Taking in the air of her gardens outside her other-father’s mansion. She even started working with this universe’s Torchwood, helping them with one thing or another. They were vastly different from the Torchwood of her own universe, outnumbered, weak. When she helped them, it was almost out of pity.

Then one day, she’d heard her name whispered in the Doctor’s voice as she slept. Her mum thought that she’d gone mad when she demanded to be taken to Bad Wolf Bay, but Rose insisted.

Nothing could have prepared her for the pain she felt when she actually saw him. What she knew would be the last time. He was speaking to her through the last hole between Universes, and he was burning a sun just to do so.

“Am I ever gonna see you again?” She’d asked him, her voice breaking. He was staying so strong, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t help crying. All those years. All those years that she had looking forward to. Now there would be nothing, just a vast expanse without the Doctor. Hundreds and Hundreds of years without him.

He knew it, too. “You can’t.”

“What’re you gonna do?” She asked, trying, and failing, to hold back the sobs.

“Ah, I’ve got the Tardis.” He took a shuddering breath. “Same old life, the last of the Time Lords.” There was a moment when his smile faltered, and when it came back, it was empty. Once again, he really was the last.

“Don’t you go alone,” She told him, nearly poking her finger to his chest, but stopping herself. She wouldn’t be able to hold herself together if she touched him and felt nothing. “You find Martha and Jack, you find them.” Rose took a deep breath. “I’ll come. I’ll figure out how to get back. I’ll do it, I’ve got hundreds of years to figure it out. You just promise me you won’t be alone.”

The smile slipped off his face, because he knew that she wouldn’t be able to do that. For the first time, it seemed like he acknowledged to himself just how long Rose would be alone in this different world. But there was one thing he could do for her. “I won’t be alone. I promise.”

Rose finally broke, clutching at where her hearts were beating in her chest. “I-“ She could hardly get the words out, it hurt so much to breath. “I love you.”

“I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it,” He paused, and Rose could see the tears in his eyes. “Rose Tyler-“

And then he was gone.

Rose sank into the sand, sobbing. And one of her hearts stopped beating.

———

———

———

She stood in the Torchwood Institute, in a full-body scanner, her face blank like stone. “You’ll have to tell us what’s normal and what’s not,” One of the technicians told her, nervously, like he was almost afraid of her. “Since you, uh. Don’t exist here-“ He met her eyes and gulped. “We don’t know what to look for.”

Rose felt bad for scaring the poor boy, and she tried to give him a smile as she dropped her arms and stepped out of the machine. She walked into the main room of the institute, which had been little more than a collection of computers a few months ago, but was now all tech-ed up thanks to her father’s generous donations, and took a look at the big screen. She pressed a few of the buttons and stepped back to get a better look at the x-ray when it popped up.  
Rose squinted at what it showed her. One of her hearts was shriveled, like it was in the process of dying. The respiratory bypass was constricted around her lungs, making it harder to breath. She knew what the other measurements would be, she’d taken them herself. Her skin was warm to the touch, nearly human-like, and her heart rate was slow.

Rose Tyler had died once before, she knew what it felt like. And she knew she was dying now.

“I’ll need a pacemaker made,” She said, nodding at the x-ray, and the Torchwood technician nodded, scrambling to write it down in his notepad. “My right heart isn’t working quite the way it should be, but I think that would fix the problem, at least temporarily. My father’s got private surgeons in his employ, they can install it.” She paused. “Not sure how different the anatomy is, but they’ll be paid well enough to figure it out.”

“Ma’am if I may,” He suggested, and his tongue darted out. A nervous tick, Rose thought as she nodded at him to continue. “Treating the symptoms is a short term solution. We won’t be able to help for long if we don’t know why you’re actually…”

“Dying?” She supplied helpfully.

“Dying, yes. So it would help if you had an idea why-“

“I know why, or at least I'm pretty sure.” She said, giving the boy a pat on the shoulder. “You’re right. I’m not supposed to exist in this universe. The last time I was here, I had the Tardis as a physical link to a universe where Time Lords were supposed to exist. Even before the last time I saw…” Rose paused. “Well, there had been holes linking this universe to mine. But they went with the Doctor. Treating the symptoms is all we’ve got. At least until I can figure out until I get back home.”

She turned to walk away, but paused and looked back. “What’s your name?”

The technician gave her a smile. “Ianto, ma’am.”

———

“How’s it going?” Rose’s father peered down at the machine. It was long, like a gun, and it even had a blaster on one end. He was an inventor himself, and he’d been helping as much as he could, despite being slightly out of his element.

“Good, I think.” Rose said, picking up another thing that had been sitting on the work table. This one was small, completely puny compared to the other one. It looked a lot like the device that they’d used years ago to teleport from one universe to another, except this time it was roughly half the size, and thin like a coin. Instead of a button, there was a blue screen. “I didn’t really pay attention to all the technology when I should have been, so this is mostly guesswork. Luckily,” She tapped her forehead. “Time Lord head. My brain’s just a bit faster. Right now,” She held out the small device to her father. “I’ve got this. I had the Tardis in my brain once, so I replicated what I remember as much as possible.”

He knew where she was going. “And you think that it’s close enough to Time Lord technology to work as a connection to your old universe?”

“Hope so,” She said, sitting down in a spinning chair. “Cause my pacemaker’s not working anymore.” Rose twirled in the chair. “My right heart’s dead. Permanently dead.”

“But you can survive, right?” Pete Tyler said, coming round the table and folding his arms. “You can still live indefinitely with one heart.”

“Yes,” She said. And she looked up at her father. “But it hurts. More than you could possibly imagine.”

———

Little Tony’s third birthday party was winding down, the children lying about, sleeping wherever they happened to stop moving. Jackie and Pete were helping the staff clean up, quietly so as not to wake the toddler horde. 

Rose watched the sky, which was getting darker, and she moved out to the back yard. She went looking for her little brother, and found him passed out, curled up on a lawn chair. She lifted him gently and started carrying him back into the mansion up to his room, nodding at the parents that were slowly starting to gather their kids and head out themselves.

Tony’s room was right next to their parents, and it was just like any other little boy’s room, toys scattered about, pictures on the walls, drawings scattered everywhere. Rose gently lowered him into bed, getting ready to tuck him in, when suddenly his eyes opened, and he blinked at her sleepily. “Hey,” she whispered. “Did you have fun?”

Tony nodded and yawned, and tried to stick his thumb into his mouth, which Rose stopped by grabbing his little hand and giving it a kiss. “Get to sleep, okay. Mum’ll come by and say goodnight in just a bit.”

“Wosie?” Tony asked as Rose got up, and she stopped just as she was about to turn off the light. “Tell me a story bout the Doctor?”

“Alright.” She walked back over. “Which one?”

“ ‘ell me about the Bad Wolf,” He was already halfway asleep, barely able to get the words out.

Rose smiled, and looked up at his wall. Taped up there, was a stick-finger drawing of Rose, yellow lights shooting out of her hands at what looked like a green pepper shaker. Tony always did like the stories where his big sister saved the day. “Once upon a time, uncle Jack, the Doctor and I, were on the Tardis, when all of a sudden this bright light showed up…”

———

Rose stepped out of Tony’s room, closing the door gently. He’d fallen asleep before she’d even gotten to the part where the Doctor had sent her away. She closed her eyes, and tried not to cry. She was happy to tell her brother stories, but all the memories made her hurt even more.

She took a deep breath and went to head back to her room, smiling at her mum, who was just now coming up the stairs.

The last thing she remembered was her mother’s face, and then everything went black.

———

“Are you sure she’s alright?” Jackie was fussing, blocking the doorway. Her arms were out, one hand on Pete’s chest, the other to hold Rose back. Keep her from leaving. “Are you sure you’re alright?” She asked, barely giving Rose time to answer. 

Rose was pinching the bridge of her nose. It had been three days since she’d blacked out, and her mum was still resisting letting her leave. All Rose wanted to do was get back to work. “Mum, I’m fine. I swear. It was just-“

“It was just what Rose? Huh, don’t think you can keep things from me, I’m your mother. I know when something’s wrong-“

Rose could feel a migraine coming on.

“Jackie, please.” Pete pleaded. “The folks at Torchwood said she’ll be fine. Besides, that’s where we’re going right now. If anything happens, that’s where we’ll be. And I’ll be right with her the whole time, yeah?” 

It looked like they were about to start having a proper argument, and Rose could see one of the mansion’s staff giving them an amused look from the kitchen, and Rose had decided to just sneak out the back door when her phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and pressed ‘answer’, ignoring her parents. “Tyler.”

“It’s Ianto,” The voice said on the other end. “You need to get to Torchwood, there’s something you need to see.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but my mum-“

“Never mind that,” Ianto interrupted. “Can you get outside?”

“Why? What’s going on?” By this point, both Jackie and Pete were looking at her. Rose held up a finger and turned round, walking to the back door, her parents on her heels. She stepped out onto the back porch and looked around. Seeing nothing, she left the porch and looked up. And stopped in her tracks, her mouth agape.

“The stars are going out.”

———

Rose stood in the Torchwood institute, holding the device. “I don’t know if it’ll work,” She told the staff. “But I’ve got to try. The darkness is coming, and I don’t know how to fix it. But the Doctor will, I’ve just got to warn him.”

Ianto gave her a steely look. “Do it.”

Rose gave him a big smile, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Y’know, back in my universe. I know someone who would absolutely love you. You’re just his type.” She looked at her parents. Pete was standing by the table, his hands on the edge, staring down at the big gun. Jackie was some distance away, holding onto herself, crying. “I love you, right. You know that.”

Jackie sniffled. “I love you, too, Rose. You be safe, you promise me.”

Rose nodded at her mum, gave a smile. They both knew there was a good chance that it would be the last time they saw each other.

Pete Tyler stood all the way up, taking the massive gun with him. He didn’t look at Rose, just put it over her, so one strap was on her shoulder and the machine on her hip. He kissed her on the forehead, and stepped back and hugged Jackie. He nodded at Rose, and mouthed ‘Love you’, and Rose mouthed it back, keeping her tears to herself.

Rose took a shuddering breath, felt her one heart beating fast in her chest. And, not giving herself any time to doubt, she took the little coin, and pressed the screen.

And then she was gone.

———

Rose found herself in a different dimension, somewhere between. A pocket universe, created for just one purpose. She kneeled down next to the red headed woman, tasting the name on her tongue. Donna Noble. The most important woman in the world.

Donna Noble was dying, exactly what Rose needed her to do. 

Rose looked into her eyes, saw her starting to fade. “You need to warn the Doctor. Just two words;”

She put her lips next to Donna’s ear to speak the words through her, to speak them all the way back home.

“ _Bad Wolf._ ”

———

Rose Tyler sensed the pocket universe collapse, and pressed the screen again. This time, she felt it. 

Home.

She looked up at the sky, at all the planets crowded round together, and nearly smiled. “Now we’re in trouble. And it’s only just beginning.”

She charged the weapon and started moving.

———

She’d seen the Tardis first. Then, the Doctor and Donna Noble stepped out, and Rose walked forward slowly, almost feeling like it couldn’t be real. Like if she actually saw his face, he would disappear like a dream. It was Donna that noticed her first, catching her eyes from all the way down the street. Rose could see Donna say something to the Doctor, and a second later he turned around. And all the air flew out of Rose’s chest.

They smiled at each other. And for a brief second, the chasm opened up, and it was like it should be. They could feel each other inside their heads. Joy, love. Rose wasn’t entirely sure when it was that they started running. Maybe it was the same time. But she could feel him, he was flying. She knew he could tell she felt the same.

The walls slammed back up when the Dalek fired. And Rose was alone in her head when the Doctor went down. 

Before she knew it, Jack was there, too. And they were hauling the Doctor into the Tardis together, not even needing to take a beat to reintroduce themselves to each other. Despite the years that separated them, they fell back into the same rhythm.

Jack helped her lower the Doctor down onto the Tardis floor, and Rose ignored the Tardis, which was practically chanting her name in joy, pulsing ‘welcome, welcome, welcome’ through the metal that Rose was keeling on. Rose put her hands over the Doctors face and smiled at him, holding the tears in. “Hey,” She whispered.

“No, no,” He said as the veins under his skin started to shimmer. “I just got you back.” 

Rose sniffled. “We change,” She told him, her voice raw. “But feelings stay the same.”

A smile broke out on his face. He remembered. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

———

“See him, See him!”

“The man that abhors violence, never carries a gun. Doctor, you take ordinary people and you turn them into weapons. Behold, your children of time. Transformed. Murderous.”

“How many have died in your name?”

“One will still die.”

———

Rose stepped out of the Tardis, and almost immediately turned around, afraid. But she couldn’t get back in, the Doctor’s… clone, had stepped out after her, nudging her away from the Tardis. The Doctor was leaning into the door, one hand on the door frame, talking to someone inside. And when he stepped out, Rose’s one working heart nearly dropped out of her chest. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

Because Donna hadn’t followed him.

“Rose!” She heard from behind her, and she turned and looked. There was her father, leaning against a jeep, his arms crossed over his chest watching her mum, who was running as fast as she could towards them.

“Doctor?” Rose turned back, to look at him. The real one. “What’s going on?”

“What’s wrong, Rose?” He asked, his face grim as he let his body sag against the Tardis.

She knew immediately what he was talking about. And she’d promised long ago not to hide anything from him. “My hearts, Time Lords aren’t supposed to exist in this universe, so all the Time Lord parts of me are failing…” The grim look on the Doctor’s face got only darker.

“Rose,” He said, looking her dead in the eyes. “If it was this Universe that was the problem, you would have been fixed the second you got back to the right one. Being here… It just accelerated it.”

“Accelerated what?” She demanded, afraid.

The Doctor breathed out her name like a sigh. “Rose… I should have seen it a long time ago. You hadn’t had time to become full Time Lord before you regenerated. The progress had stopped in it’s tracks. You got stuck somewhere between human and not. That’s why you didn’t change when you regenerated, why I couldn’t feel you in my head.” He took a deep breath, and the words choked in his chest.

It was the clone that spoke for him, when he couldn’t. “You can’t start human and get stuck halfway without consequences, Rose. The systems aren’t compatible. You were dying long before you got trapped here.”

“No,” Rose whispered, and she felt her mother reach her side. Jackie Tyler, having heard the tail end, gripped Rose’s arms, but Rose couldn’t look at her. All she could look at was the Doctor. “What about Donna?”

“I have a way to save you, I have a way to save both of you.” There weren’t tears. He was unnervingly calm. “I have to take away everything that was Time Lord, make you human again. But you’ll have to forget me.”

“No, no!” Rose was starting to understand, and she tried to fight, but Jackie held her tight with all her strength. Rose looked up at what was in the Doctor’s hands. A little glass locket in the shape of a heart, with a simple gold lock on one side. The Doctor opened it, and held it to her face.

There was a moment, when it started to slip away, that Rose tried to say something.

But she couldn’t remember.

———

Rose Tyler padded down the stairs, yawning. She peeked into Tony’s room real quick, and he was fast asleep, so she headed to the kitchen. Her mum and dad were around the table. Pete had a coffee in one hand, and Jackie was sipping her tea. “G’mornin,” Rose said, heading to the pot to get a cup herself.

“Good morning, Rose.” Jackie said, maybe just a bit louder than she should have. Rose turned around in time to see her father shoot Jackie a weird look.

“Right then, what’s going on with you?” She asked, still mostly asleep. But she put the mug down and sat across from the two of the.

“Well, you know how you’ve been talking about goin’ back and doing your a-levels?” Rose nodded, she remembered saying that… Sometime ago. “Well, don’t be mad, but I’ve gone and hired you a tutor.” Jackie said, looking nervous.

“Ugh, mum!” Rose groaned. “I’m 23, they’re gonna think I’m daft. Doing A-levels at my age.”

“Well!” Jackie huffed. “You’ve got to do something with your life, I’m not gonna put you up forever!” There was a ding as the doorbell rang. “That’s probably him, I’ll get it!”

“It’s eight in the morning!”

“Well, you’re dressed aren’t you?” Jackie got up, and Rose noticed a little glass heart sparkling at the base of her neck. 

Rose banged her head down on the table the second her mum left the room, to which Pete gave a little giggle at, though he must have pretended he didn’t, because Rose’s mum didn’t have something smart to say at him when she came back into the room, followed by two other footsteps. 

“Hello!” A bright voice said, and Rose looked up to see a man. Rather scrawny, but handsome. Brown hair, brown eyes. Looked awful familiar, but Rose couldn’t place the face. “I’m John Smith. Maths and science tutor extraordinaire.” Rose couldn’t stop a smile as he plonked himself next to her at the table. “You must be Rose.”

“I must be.” She said, trying to put a little flirt in her voice.

“Well, then. What is it you want to study?”

She was taken aback. “Oh, I dunno.” She really hadn’t thought that far, when she’d been idly mentioning going back to school… Well, years ago. But a smile lit her face as she thought, and she saw John Smith smile back at her. “I think I might want to be a Doctor.”


	5. Time Lord, Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting with a flash-forward with this one, partially for fun but mostly to hint at the reunions to come.

It was Valentines Day, 2019, and the gang was sitting at a table at a cafe in Paris, watching the crowds, comparing stories about their respective love lives. The Doctor was listening happily, her chin in her hands as her friends told their various tales, both cute and embarrassing. She was having the time of her life.

“What about you, then?” Graham asked, giving a bittersweet smile. He’d just told a story about when he’d first started dating Grace. And they were all glad that he could now look back on their memories and remember the good things, and not just how much it had hurt him to loose her. 

“What?” The Doctor said, putting her hands back down on the table.

“Surely you’ve dated before,” Yaz said. “You’re what… How many years old?”

“Little over two thousand.” She replied. “Of course I’ve dated. I’ve even been married.”

“Married?” Ryan asked her like it was a big shock. “You? Married. I can’t imagine it. Must’ve been one hell of a bloke.”

“ _She_. But she died a long time ago, saving my life.” The Doctor and Graham’s eyes met. There was a beat. Both understanding each other. “Hundreds of years ago. Actually, it was the first time I met her. She was a time traveller, too. So we were always going in the wrong directions.” She paused. “She deserved better. But I’d lost the woman I’d loved when I met her, so I didn’t love her as much as I should have.”

“What was her name?” Yaz asked, looking a little bit shaken, though the Doctor didn’t know why. “That first girl you’d loved.”

The Doctor smiled. Really smiled, like the memory was lighting her up from inside. “Her name was Rose. Rose Tyler.”

———

The gang was back in the Tardis, trying to figure out where they wanted to go. Graham had been silent, thoughtful. Which had worried the Doctor. “Can we meet her?” He asked, stepping forward. “Rose Tyler?”

“Why would you want to meet her?” The Doctor replied, her voice carefully controlled. She fiddled with the controls and looked at the Tardis, rather than at anyone else. She noticed how quiet the room had gotten.

“Well, she was obviously a big part of your life. But you’ve never mentioned her before now.” Graham shrugged. “Figure she might be interesting. Especially since you never said what happened to her.”

The Doctor didn’t say anything.

Yaz looked up from where she’d been staring at her shoes. “I’d like to meet her too.”

Ryan piped up. “If you’re worried about Timelines, you could just go some time before she met you.” The Doctor was still quiet. “Wait. You’ve done it before, haven’t you? Gone back to see her. That’s why you don’t want t-”

“Eh tu, Ryan? Really?” The Doctor asked, but slammed a switch down. “Fine, have it your way. Let’s go see Rose Tyler.”

———

“2005. London. March.” The Doctor said, stepping out of the Tardis. Her voice a bit grumpy. She waited for the rest of the gang to filter out after her before she continued. “The year I met Rose. She was nineteen, working in that shop, right there-“ She pointed.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ryan asked. “Let’s go.”

———

Rose Tyler looked up from rearranging a stack of trousers to see a group of people around another table, doing that look-not-look thing that customers did whenever they needed help but didn’t want to bother you. She sighed and stood up, brushing off her shirt before putting on a smile. 

“Good morning!” She said, biting her cheek to keep from laughing as they all jumped like they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “You need any help finding anything?”

“Nope,” The older man said, but he was looking at the blonde, who was staring very intently at a t-shirt that wasn’t really all that interesting. “We’re touristing, just popped in for a bit to get away from the crowds.”

Rose brightened. She loved talking to people that had travelled from out of town. Especially since Rose had barely left London her whole life. “Really? Where are you all from?”

“Well, we’re from Sheffield,” The pretty girl said, gesturing to herself and the two men. “And the Doctor here,” She put a hand on the blonde woman’s shoulder and leaned just enough to turn her around so that she was also facing Rose. “Well, she just travels a whole lot.”

“Wish I could do that,” Rose sighed. “I’ve got a passport, not that I’ve ever used it.” She noticed the girls hand stayed on the blonde’s shoulder, and she gave a sly smile. “You two a couple?”

Both of the women balked for a second, but eventually the blonde woman… Doctor something? Nodded and wrapped an arm around the other, who blushed a very pretty dark brown colour. “Yep, yes we are. That all right?” Her chin was held high, but her voice was somewhat nervous.

Good for you, Rose thought, proud of this complete stranger. Through the shop’s door, she saw Mickey stroll in to pick her up for lunch. She leaned in conspiratorially to whisper, nodding in Mickey’s direction. “Right, well don’t tell my boyfriend, but the first person I’ve ever kissed was actually my mate, Suki. So yeah,” She winked. “It’s alright. Well, since you don’t need anything.” 

The gang almost simultaneously raised their hands to wave bye as she practically skipped over to Mickey, who wrapped her in a big hug. There was a beat.

“Oh my god,” Yaz said. “She’s great.”

“Yeah,” The Doctor whispered, her voice hoarse. Just on the edge of her vision, she noticed the pinky finger of one of the mannequins twitch, and she turned to look at it, and then quickly checked her watch. Realizing, a big smile lit her face. “This was the day I first met her.”

———

———

———

Rose was lying on the edge of her mum’s bed, her feet dangling off the edge. She’d desperately needed to get away from the crowds below. All those people, with their sympathetic glances. Rose felt like a wolf trying to gnaw their foot off to escape a trap. She’d even snapped at John, who’d only given her an understanding look, which made her all the more angry, so she’d put herself under self-imposed exile.

She sighed and rolled over, curling her knees up as close as they could get to her chest in the black dress. Rose Tyler hated funerals.

Especially since it was her mums.

Jackie Tyler had passed away peacefully in her sleep, next to the man she loved. She’d been happy. Rose should be handling this better, but she wasn’t.

Rose pulled her hand up to look at the locket inside of her fist. It was her mum’s locket. And not once in the last seven years, had she seen her mother without it. It looked weird to see it not on Jackie’s neck. Rose traced the glass, idly, wondering at the little circular designs carved on it. They looked vaguely familiar, like a dream that you forgot the second you woke up.

Rose sat up like a shock had run through her, and she stared down at the gold clasp. She could have sworn it was a lock. An instinctive desire took hold, and her hands trembled as she popped the clasp, and very very slowly, she started to pry the locket apart…

“Rose!” Her dad exclaimed loudly, practically startling her out of her skin. She snapped the necklace closed and turned around to look at him, a hand over her chest to calm her racing heart. Pete looked like he almost felt bad for scaring her. “You shouldn’t open that, it’s very delicate.” He said gently. “You could break it.”

He had dark circles under his eyes, and Rose imagined that he probably hadn’t slept at all since her mother died.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She shook her head, looking down at the locket. She blinked. And there it was, the lock. Right where it was supposed to be. She pulled her hair off of her neck and clasped the two ends together, and let the weight of the heart settle in the crook of her neck. “C’mon dad, let’s head back.” She said, rounding the bed and patting her father on the shoulder.

Just as they were leaving the room, her eyes caught her reflection, and for a second, her eyes looked like they glowed.

———

_The things were closing in. It was so dark, and their blank faces stared down at her, full of malice. She was so afraid._

Rose.

_The hand raised up slowly, and she flinched, too scared to look._

Rose!

_She felt someone grab her hand, and she turned to look. A man, a brilliant smile on his face. He was excited. For a moment, she forgot the plastic monsters. “Run!”_

Rose, Wake up!

_The hand crashed down, right where her head had been a second ago. And she and the man were doing what they would always do. They were runni-_

“Rose!” The hands on her shoulders shook her awake. She opened her eyes, and John gave a relieved sigh. “You were having a nightmare-“ But something was wrong.

Rose screamed and flung herself out of the bed. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t supposed to be _his_ face.

———

Rose was feeling awful embarrassed about this morning, but luckily John had forgiven her rather quickly for screaming right in his ears. It was easily explained away by the nightmare. But Rose was much more scared of the truth. 

Because, when she had seen him, the man she’d been with for nearly seven years now, she hadn’t recognized him.

Even as she was giving him a kiss on the cheek on the way out to school, something felt off. She looked at John, and all she could think was that it was the wrong face. 

———

_Doctor…_

Rose nearly dropped her coffee. The voice was hers, but it was completely unprompted. Like it had been spoken from outside of her. 

_I want you safe, my Doctor. Protected from the false god._

The whisper was gone just as soon as it had started.

Great, Rose thought. Auditory hallucinations. Just what I need.

———

Two weeks later, Rose was sitting at home, working on a paper when she felt a searing pain in her head. It felt like her brain was on fire, and she gripped her skull, willing the pain to go away. Tears sprang out of the corners of her eyes and she tried not to scream.

A voice was shouting at her, and she turned her head. There he was, the man. Lying on the ground, crouched in fear of… her? _You’re gonna burn!_ He yelled. And she looked around herself. The pain was there, pouring from her skull down through her body. She was like a goddess, completely divorced from herself as she examined the room in front of her.

_I am the … I take the words, and I scatter them._

The image disappeared, and so did the pain, leaving a throbbing ache behind. She staggered to her feet to get to the kitchen sink. She was shaking as she turned on the faucet and grabbed the bottle of Advil from the counter and swallowed to of the little pills, using her hands to get the water to wash them down.

There was something she needed to remember. She’d forgotten something about herself. The words had been on the edge of her tongue. I am the… 

I am the what?

———

Rose was thoroughly convinced she was going insane. Though she knew that wasn’t the correct clinical term. But she was experiencing some sort of psychosis, that she was sure of.

She looked at the man she loved, and she saw two faces, but one of them was a stranger. For some reason, it felt like the strangers face was the one she knew more, though. And that scared her.

She didn’t tell John anything. She didn’t want him to worry. And she knew that he would. Worry.

Rose sat down on their bed and took her mum’s necklace off. She looked down at the locket, wondering if maybe the hallucinations were due to the trauma of Jackie’s death. That was something she could make sense of. A perfectly reasonable explanation. 

She put the locket down on the nightstand and curled up under the covers, still in her clothes from the day. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get a nights rest for the first time in months, Rose Tyler closed her eyes.

———

_I create myself._

This time, the whisper was gentle. It woke her from sleep lovingly, like a caress. Her eyes flickered open, and she slowly became aware of the room. She was lying on her side, the same position she had fallen asleep in. However, it was much later, and John was sleeping next to her, snoring gently, one arm slung lazily over her.

Rose sat up slowly, so as not to wake him. She put on her slippers and picked up the locket on her way to the toilet. She shut the door quietly. Didn’t even bother to turn on the light, just let the moon illuminate the room through the window. 

In addition to the moon, there was another thing lighting up the room. The locket. It glowed softly, and felt warm in her hands. She stared at it, mystified. 

Her thumb brushed the side of it, and Rose heard the locket click open. It looked like the gold glow was seeping out of the sides, and she very carefully pried it all the way open. There was a pause, like both her and the locket were assessing each other.

The energy seemed to let out a content sigh, and then it swarmed into her with one quick rush, dropping her to the ground.

_I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself._

———

Rose eased the door open, full of barely controlled rage. She could feel it, the power, simmering under her skin like it had so many many years ago, back when she had first taken the Time Vortex into her. Except, this time she was the one controlling it. She could remember everything. The whole of the universe was collapsing, because there was something that didn’t belong.

She could feel the entirety of the fabric of it’s existence trembling in fear of her.

Both of her hearts were beating steady. Her breath was strong. When her eyes met her reflection, they simmered with energy, her pupils awash in a gold light. She clasped the locket, now empty, in her fist.

The designs were Gallifreyan. There had been a barrier once before, but now she could read it.

_Bad Wolf._

It had been a trap specifically designed to ensnare her.

She walked back into the bedroom, but John Smith… No. The fake Doctor. The Liar. He was no longer in the bed. She turned slowly, scanning the room. And she found him, leaning against the big window. His arms folded, a grim expression on his face. 

“You…” She said, not sure how to voice what she felt. The pain. The betrayal. The Anger. “You took it from me. Both of you. You took everything from me, and you never gave me a choice.”

“It was to save your life.” He said calmly.

The rage exploded from within. How dare he, how dare he be so calm! He didn’t even feel the need to defend himself. “It wasn’t your choice to make!” She screamed, and she felt the universe shake.

The false Doctor also felt it. And his voice grew so sad. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Rose wiped a tear off her cheek. “I’m sorry too.” She said, and the false Doctor nodded like he understood. Rose closed her eyes, and she crushed the locket in her grasp.

———

———

———

Rose floated in the void for what must have been eons. The Universe she was in had started to collapse the second she had opened up the locket, maybe she wouldn’t have opened it if she knew that would have been the result.

The yawning endlessness gave her time to grieve and mourn. For her mother, for her father and her little brother, Tony, who must have died in the collapse. Even for John Smith. She’d been so angry at him for stealing her memories, but after thousands of years of nothing else to do, she’d learned to forgive him.

Those many many years had also allowed another thing, something she hadn’t had time to do before. The transition from human to Timelord, was finally allowed to complete. She wasn’t sure when exactly it had finished, but soon after she became aware of something else in the void.

 _Well, Well._ Whatever it was whispered in her ear. And even though she could see nothing but white stretching in all directions, she felt herself being observed. _Aren’t you a naughty little thing, breaking apart two Universes?_

“I didn’t do it on purpose.” Rose said.

 _Yes, I suppose maybe you didn’t._ The presence felt like it tilted it’s head to get a better look at her. _How about a deal? I fix the Universes you broke, drop you back off at the one you really want to be in, and in exchange I get to use your body to get a few things done._

“Why?”

 _I need your face. It makes a statement. Especially to the Doctor._ The thing paused, and there was the sensation of breath on Rose’s face. _Do I have your permission?_

Yes.

———

Rose became aware in a place that she knew instinctively that she had never been before. She could feel the thrum of the planet below as it spun through a galaxy whose movements were entirely unfamiliar. The radiation hummed in the air, heavier than she’d ever experienced before, and she looked up, through the holes in the roof of the cabin. If it had been her that was breathing, the breath would have caught in her chest. Twice the Ultraviolet radiation. Because there were two suns.

She knew immediately where the creature had taken her.

Gallifrey.

She was completely isolated from her body, watching it from outside. It sat, perched on the clicking box. Hungry like an animal. Watching the old man. “Hello?” He called out of the door. Not looking at it. “Is somebody there?”

“It’s nothing.” The creature whispered with Rose’s voice. “It’s just a wolf.”

He ran over and grabbed it by the arm, pulling it hurriedly out of the door, which Rose’s consciousness watched from a corner. “Don’t sit on that!” He exclaimed.

“Why not?” The creature asked idly, like it didn’t entirely care.

“Because it’s not a chair! It’s the most dangerous weapon in the Universe!”

The old man slammed the door, and Rose watched the creature appear exactly where it had been a second ago, relaxed on the box. “Why can’t it be both?” It asked, and the man, in addition to the energy in the room, both froze, recognizing a threat. “Why did you park so far away? Didn’t you want her to see it?”

His brows furrowed. “Who to see?”

“The Tardissss,” It dragged out the last letter, and Rose felt the sound echo around the room. And a pit of dread started to fill Rose as she watched. “You walked for miles!” It laughed happily, springing up to look at the man, whose identity Rose was starting to piece together. “And miles and miles and miles and miles…” It spun abruptly, it’s voice a whisper. “I heard you.”

“You heard me?”

“Noooo more.” It did a little dance. “No more.” _No More…_ the man’s voice whispered back through the air, though he didn’t make a sound. “No More!” No more. “No more, no more!”

“Stop it!” The man finally said, his voice nearly a shout.

Curtailed, the creature smiled. “No more.” And the box let out a loud click behind them.

“It’s activating!” The man said, rushing towards the box. “Get out of here!” 

The second his hands touched the box, Rose felt the creature pull power from her, and watched her own eyes light up. The man gasped like he’d been burned, and the creature smiled, looking directly at Rose as it spoke. “What’s wrong?”

“The interface is hot!”

“Well I try my best.” And there was a beat, as the man understood.

“There’s a power source inside…” He looked up at it. “You’re the interface?”

“Surely they told you the Moment had a conscience.” Rose stilled. Now she knew the creature’s name. “Hello!” It smiled. “Oh, look at you. Stuck between a girl and a box. Story of your life, eh Doctor?”

“You know me?” 

“I _hear_ you. All of you. Jangling around in that dusty old head of yours. I chose this face and form, especially for you!” The Moment ran it’s hands over Rose Tyler’s body, almost like it was nervous. “It’s from your past. Or it must be your future, I always get those two mixed up.”

“I don’t have a futu-“

“I think I’m called…” The Moment paused, and Rose used everything in her power to keep the words from leaving her own mouth. But after a pause, it prevailed. “…Rose Tyler.” It tilted it’s head, listening to Rose’s protests. “No. Yes? No. Sorry, in this form…” For just a brief moment, the Moment let Rose back inside her body to speak. 

“I’m called…” Rose tasted the air, relieved to be where she belonged. 

She turned her gaze to the Doctor. _“Bad Wolf.”_ The Power of the Time Vortex lit up her eyes from behind, and Rose could feel the Moment bare its teeth in a smug snarl as she spoke the next words. 

_“Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Doctor?”_

———

Rose watched the three Doctor’s through The Moments eyes. It had taken back control, but this time it was mutual. They both knew that Rose wouldn’t be able to handle it at that moment if she could talk to him… He stood there, with his future incarnation, staring right past her.

The moment had told her it was invisible to them, only the War Doctor could see it.

Rose knew why, but the way he didn’t look at her still broke her heart.

It didn’t help that she was also still very very angry at him in particular.

The War Doctor, she knew, was the precursor to the first Doctor she loved. And for that, she loved him dearly, too, and she ached at his pain. 

The other one, who walked with the pretty girl, Clara, she couldn’t help but laugh at. He was weirdly Jolly and strange, nothing like the ones she’d seen before. She also remembered him as the maths tutor that had worked at her primary school.

He’d helped her with her homework. The fact that he’d been willing to visit her, be apart of her life while still letting her live it, for that she loved him, too.

But they were all being impossibly annoying. Rose could see the solution staring them right in the face, the solution that the Moment had practically plopped before them with a great big bow.

But eventually, they finally started putting two and two together. “This time, there’s three of us!” The young Doctor exclaimed happily.

“Oh, Oh!” The War Doctor put his head in his hands and spun. “Oh, yes that Is good! That is Brilliant! She didn’t just show me any old future, she showed me exactly the future I needed to see.”

The Moment grinned. “Now you’re getting it!”

“Eh, who did?” The young Doctor asked, oblivious.

“Oh, Bad Wolf Girl I could kiss you!”

“Yep, that’s gonna happen.” The Moment was absolutely delighted, having accomplished exactly what it wanted to. But the entirety of Rose’s attention was focused on her Doctor.

And the fear on his face. “I’m sorry, did you say Bad Wolf?”

———

“Right, you’ve done what you’ve wanted. We’ve saved the Time Lords, now what are you gonna do?”

 _Exactly what I promised, my love._ The moment whispered, grinning like the Cheshire cat. _I’m gonna fix the Universe you were stuck in, put it back together. That’ll be fun. And I’ll put you back in your true Universe._

“How’re you gonna do that?”

_When that Universe broke itself apart trying to shoot you out of it, it opened up a few holes in our one. One of those was the one that let me bring all those Doctors together to save Gallifrey, the other, you should be familiar with. It’s caused you all sorts of trouble in your past._

Rose gave it a horrified thought. “The rift? I did that?” She thought about it, all the people who had died because of it. Mr. Sneed, Gwyneth, the Slytheen woman. All her fault.

 _Yes. Your fault. But I don’t judge. I’m one of the most dangerous weapons in the Universe, and you’re another one._ Rose felt a gentle pressure on her forehead like the Moment was giving her a kiss goodbye. _It’s Time to go home, Rose Tyler. I will miss you._


	6. The Bad Wolf Must Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I managed to finish my essays for University, so here's a long long chapter in exchange for your patience.

Jack woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He rolled over, and nearly fell off the bed grabbing it off his nightstand. “Harkness,” He said, not bothering with pleasantries. You didn’t get a polite greeting at two in the morning.

“You’ve got to come in,” Someone chittered on the other end. Jack blinked, trying to remember the name. They were new to Torchwood… Jessie? Jerrie? Jax? Something with a j. “We’re getting weird readings, earthquakes, lightning strikes-“

“Where?” He asked, sitting up and rolling his shoulders to stretch. He wasn’t totally awake yet, but the word the technician said sent a chill down his spine.

“Cardiff.”

The rift. Jack wasn’t feeling tired anymore. “Get a car ready, load it up. All the weapons we got. I’ll meet you there.”

———

Jack couldn’t remember the last time he was in Cardiff, linearly. It had been a couple times, scattered throughout the years, but he was old enough that it was hard for him to put them in order, especially since there were younger versions of him running around the UK back when he’d travelled with the Doctor. Time travel tended to complicate things.

But he remembered that each time he went, it was because something bad was happening. Or something bad was about to happen.

He met up with the new guy just as the sun was coming up in the center of Cardiff. Right above the rift, and just as he was about to ask …Jay? What was going on, the earth spasmed and the air became electrically charged. All of Jack’s hairs stood on end, and they saw a white light opening up about twenty feet above.

Jack noticed that the new guy wasn’t shaking, which was rather impressive, just pointed his smaller gun at the light as Jack grabbed a blaster from the bag of weapons that they had brought. Whatever it was that was coming through the rift must have been dangerous, and neither of them had any intent of letting it through.

A loud bang echoed like something hitting the speed of sound, nearly dropping them. Jack looked over, and saw Jay’s ears were bleeding, and he looked a bit dazed. Jack himself could barely hear anything over the buzzing, but he was healing fast enough that the second bang was audible. He let out a yell, but trained his blaster on the light, ignoring the pain rattling through his head.

Finally, something shot down from the light so hard that the ground cracked open on impact, shooting dust up into the air. The light popped out of existence, leaving only Jack and Jay with whatever was struggling to get up inside the small crater. Jay got up shakily, blinking more than he should, and Jack took his gun from him, shoving it into the holster on his lower back.

The Dust finally started to clear, and Jack jerked the blaster up, pointing it at the figure that was now standing up and staggering towards them. The figure made a noise and stared at him, it’s voice hoarse. “Jack?”

Jack blinked. “Rose?”

———

Six hours, a shower, and one well-deserved nap later, Rose Tyler emerged from what she assumed was the former guest room of the house that now served as the Torchwood headquarters. She padded down the hall in some borrowed joggers that reminded her of something her mum would have worn, towards the main room.

The whole thing was littered with tech, mostly things she could recognize as computers, even though they were far more advanced than anything she had seen before, but there were also items that were entirely foreign to her. Metal machines, zooming lights and screens that shot across the ceiling with thousands of buttons.

Rose wondered if it was weird that she was jealous that the Torchwood she had worked for, even with all the stuff she had provided, wasn’t nearly as powerful as this.

She found Jack eventually, working behind some screen, looking oddly alone amidst all the busyness of the technology. He didn’t look up at her, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Really took your sweet time coming to visit me, huh?” He asked. “And what an entrance!”

“Sorry…” She said, her lip quirking up. “Would have visited you if I could. Trust me.”

“Nothing keeping you.” He looked up, a smile on his face. “How were the Falklands? You had enough sheep for one lifetime?”

She blinked. “What?”

“The Falklands,” Jack said. “Doctor told me that you and the clone were heading off to live there. I mean, I guess it makes sense, you wanting to live out the rest of his life with him, since he only had the one but…” He noticed the expression on her face. “What?”

“Is that what he told you?” Rose asked, her voice cold. “That I was out on some Island herding sheep?”

“Well, what were you doing?”

She turned. “What year is it?”

“2052,” Jack stood up slowly, making his way around the desk like he was trying to avoid startling a dangerous animal. “What’s wrong?”

Rose gave a halfway hysterical laugh. “2052, should’ve expected something like that. The Moment told me it would bring me back, never said when. Explains the tech.” She wiped at her eyes. “The Doctor lied to you. Of course he did, what else? You might have stopped him.”

Jack’s voice was unreadable. “What did he do?” 

“Took my memories of all our time together, made me human and trapped me in that alternate Universe with the clone. Let me think he was just a normal guy and I was just a normal girl.” She snorted. “But I got it all back, I ripped open two Universes when I remembered who I was. ‘Had to make a deal with a sentient Time Lord weapon to get them put back together, which I’m still not entirely sure was a good idea. Giving something designed to un-make planets the authority to remake an entire Universe, built in it’s image. You couldn’t pay me enough to go to that Universe now.” She shuddered. “Uh, anyways. It seems like I’ll need a job now, any positions available?”

Jack kept his face carefully blank while she had been talking, but he blinked at the question. He thought about Jasper, which was the technicians actual name, who had very politely given notice that he was quitting effective immediately, after they had gotten back from Cardiff. The kid was going to take a cushy office job at U.N.I.T., not that Jack could fault him for it. Jack smiled. “You know what, I think I could find something for you.”

———

———

———

“How exactly are you going to fix the Universes?” Rose asked while the Moment split a hole in the seams of the Void.

_Oh, yours is simple. It escaped most of the damage, so I’ll just sew it back up once you’re through. Easy-peasy._ It paused, as if it was looking down at something Rose couldn’t see. To her, the void was just a great yawning white expanse, now complete with a jagged meter-square hole in the center. _That other one will be much more fun, though. I was built not to kill, but to eliminate. I erase things from existence, people, planets, whatever. No trace, wholly pulled from Time itself. I’m going to do the opposite with the other Universe, pull back the atoms of its existence from where they collapsed in. Rebuild it from scratch, recycle the materials it was made from. It’ll be almost exactly as it was._ The Moment smiled savagely, and Rose decided that she didn’t want to know what ‘almost exactly’ meant.

“Including the people?”

_Including the people. It’ll be like it was before you broke it._

Rose flinched. She didn’t like knowing that she was the one that had caused that destruction. “Including John Smith?”

There was a beat, and then with a great Rush, the Moment appeared before her, inches away, breathing on her face. It felt like it was gathering a measure of her soul, seeing all of her. Even the parts of her she didn’t know yet. _Do you want me to bring him back? Is that his punishment, to suffer alone in that Universe, knowing that you’re gone and that he hurt you? Or do you want him snuffed out of existence entirely, nothing but a memory for you to look back on? Would that fill your belly with revenge, World-Killer?_

Rose opened her mouth, but she couldn’t answer. Didn’t know how. _That’s what I thought._ It whispered, moving back. _I’m sending you through now, Bad Wolf. And do me a favor_ , it hesitated. _Do not go looking for the Doctor. Do not attract their attention. The Doctor has things they need to do, people they need to save, and they cannot do it if they know you are alive. It would alter the timeline of the Universe far too much. You will know when it is safe for you to return to them, but do not let the Doctor see you until then._

“How will I know?”

_It is in your name, Bad Wolf._

———

———

———

It didn’t take very long for Rose to find her rhythm in Torchwood, doing exactly what she had once been doing the first time she’d gotten trapped in the alternate universe. Except this time, she was able to step back and let Jack lead. It was interesting, watching him. He was so entirely comfortable here, like he’d found his purpose. He had always been confident and capable, but it was so smooth and easy for him to take control of the operation, like it came as naturally to him as breathing.

Torchwood was one thing, but outside of it, she had a much harder time adjusting. The world had moved on without her, politics were different, countries were different, tech was different. She almost felt like she was learning a new language as she was adjusting to the modern lingo.

People she had once known had forgotten about her, which wasn’t something she’d been prepared for at all. Martha Jones, Rose’s old friend, was now in a nursing home having worked for U.N.I.T. her whole life, a widow with a vast horde of grandchildren that came and visited her almost every day. Shireen had swanned off to Europe in her thirties and stayed there. Mickey had run a tech firm up until old age had forced him to quit, but even in his eighties he still remained a strong hand behind the scenes, continuing to direct his heirs in important decisions.

Rose had watched this all from a distance, happy for them, that they’d been able to get on with their lives. But it broke her heart. To think that Jack had been there the whole time, watching them slip farther away. She admired him greatly.

Eventually, Rose decided to go back to University to help herself get reacclimatized to the world. When she wasn’t at Torchwood, she was studying, using her vast immortality to get degree after degree in all sorts of fields. Anthropology, Sociology, Mathematics, Biology. Jack liked to tease her about it, especially when she took language classes. The Tardis’s effect still worked on him, but as Rose liked to grouchily point out, he hadn’t spent years in a Tardis-less universe followed by who-knows-how-long in an empty void.

———

It was nearly thirty years of keeping her head down before Rose Tyler was given Universal permission to see the Doctor again. They had been combing through the hollowed-out remains of a house, looking for hints as to what had caused the destruction, thinking that the explosion had been of preternatural origins. Rose had lifted a piece of rubble in what had once been a bedroom, exposing a set of shelves.

The insides were remarkably intact. Though, Rose thought as she rifled through it’s contents, the original owner must have been a pack rat. The shelves were filled with paper after paper of mostly junk. A flier at the bottom caught her eye, and she pried it out, dusting off the glossy paper that had yellowed with age. 

“You still got that Vortex manipulator?” Rose asked, carefully making her way to the burnt-out living room, where Jack was fiddling with the controls of a smart Telly, trying to get it to work again so he could use the camera to see what had been going on before the explosion happened. The flier was still clenched in her fist.

“Yeah, but you know that it stopped working centuries ago, why-“ He looked up at her, read the expression on her face.

“Because,” She held up the flier for him to read. “I've got a party to attend.”

He grabbed it from her hands and looked down on the writing:

**SAY GOODBYE TO THE OLD AND WELCOME TO THE NEW**

**BRING 2005 IN WITH A BANG**

**FEATURING THE BAD WOLF BAND**

———

They’d both worked on the Vortex manipulator for months before it was functional. But, Jack told her roughly one hundred thousand times, it would only work once. And she had about twenty minutes before it was time to go back, otherwise she might get stuck in 2005.

She was immortal, so that prospect wasn’t nearly as daunting as it should be.

They hugged each other as Rose stood in his flat. She’d prepared extensively, trying to remember exactly how she’d looked all those years ago, doing research on materials and styles of the time so her clothes would match. She looked up at Jack, the Vortex manipulator on her wrist, just waiting to press the button.

“Ready?” He asked her, and she nodded.

“See you soon.”

Jack grinned. “You better.”

———

Rose opened her eyes in the middle of a party, people gyrating wildly to old pop music. Rose grinned at the track suits and hoop earrings and peroxide-bleached hair, feeling a wave of nostalgia rise over her. She’d had this song on a cd once. “Rose, there you are!” A voice said, and Rose felt a hand on her shoulder, so she turned. 

And saw her mum.

Rose’s hearts broke, and she wrapped her arms around her mum. Who pulled back, baffled. “What’s wrong?”

Rose smiled. “Nothin, mum. You ready to go?”

They were arguing before long, all the way back to the flat, though Rose struggled to remember what exactly they would be arguing about. The clock was ticking, and she was starting to feel like Cinderella, waiting for midnight. Twenty minutes. They’d been walking thirteen, and she hadn’t seen the Doctor at all.

Rose wasn’t paying all that much attention, just going through the motions, her arms hugged against her chest to avoid the cold. “Be fair though,” Jackie was saying, “In my tiny life I’m not gonna do much better.”

Rose stopped and put her hand on her mum’s shoulder, trying not to cry. “Don’t be like that,” She tucked Jackie’s hair behind her ear. “You never know, there could be someone out there.” She had to hold in a smile, knowing that what she said couldn’t have been more true.

Jackie shrugged. “Maybe, one day.” Suddenly, she smiled. “Happy new year!”

“Happy new year!” Rose laughed. They hugged. “Don’t stay out all night,” She scolded, and turned to walk in the opposite direction, looking down at the timer nervously. 5 minutes left. As she was walking, there was a groan from behind her and she turned, her breath catching in her chest.

There he was. The Doctor. The one who abandoned her. She very carefully controlled her voice. “You alright, mate?”

His response was short. “Yeah.”

She gave a tight smile. “Too much to drink?”

“Something like that.”

Rose had to avoid tilting her head. Something was wrong. “Maybe it’s time you went home.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, happy new year.” She got ready to turn. The Doctor, visiting the estates. Something she knew she didn’t remember him ever doing. Her stomach started hurting with dread. Four minutes.

“What year is this?”

“Blimey, how much’ve you had? 2005, January the first.” She felt almost silly, pretending to be unaware of time travel. Of course he wouldn’t know what year it was.

“2005.” His face was serious, and she nodded. Starting to get it. The smile slipped off of her face. “Tell you what, I bet you’re gonna have a really great year.”

“Yeah?” She gave him one last smile, and turned to run. Two minutes. “See ya.” She said, slowing her speed so she wasn’t outright bolting up the stairs. She waited until she was just out of view, and with only seconds left she slammed on the button to take her back.

———

Jack caught her when she came through time, gasping at the way it made her skin burn. She definitely had pushed it too close. The Vortex manipulator sparked and simmered and she had to throw the malfunctioning ‘watch’ off her wrist before it caught fire, finally one hundred percent dead. Jack grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put it out while she caught her breath.

“What is it, what happened?” Jack asked, putting the extinguisher back in it’s case. “Did you see him?”

Rose nodded, sniffling. The emotions were welling up faster than she thought they would. She knew the breakdown was coming any second. “He was dying.” She said, wiping a tear off of her cheek. “He was dying, he was visiting my younger me.” She paused, feeling her hearts break in two. “He came to say goodbye.”

———

It was far too soon, eight years later, and Rose didn’t even have any warning ahead of time. 

They were in the Torchwood control center, working on miscellaneous projects. Rose was sorting reports between easily explainable phenomena and actual potential dangerous preternatural activity, and Jack had been checking on the various field agents he had deployed over the world, as well as setting up for his own mission. They heard the engine noise, coming from right down the hallway. 

Rose shot up, in a panic, looking for somewhere to bolt. She made a move for Jack’s office, across the control center, and he caught her by the arm, halfway confused. “What are you doing?” He asked. “Aren’t you gonna talk to him?”

She shook him off. “I can’t. The Moment warned me not to interfere with the Doctor’s timeline unless I get one of the Bad Wolf messages I sent myself. I just- I can’t-“ The engines stopped making the noise, and Rose gave Jack a pleading look.

Jack let her go, but he slipped something into her hand. “Go, I got this.” He said, pushing her towards his office. He pushed the door shut behind her, and Rose slid down against the wall until she was on the floor. She could feel her hearts racing.

Two beats later, she opened up her hand and looked at what Jack gave her. It was an earpiece, so she could hear the conversation and speak to Jack without the Doctor being able to hear her. They’d used it before on missions. Jack had the receiver implanted in his skin, so it only worked between him and whoever had the earpiece. She slipped it into her ear and closed her eyes to listen.

The conversation had apparently already started. “—but you could have knocked, not that I expected you too.” Jack was saying, his voice curt. “What is it that you want? Cause it’s not like you exactly stop by for tea anymore. We haven’t had that kind of relationship in decades.”

“Nice to see you, too.” An old, gravelly Scottish voice spoke back. “You’ve heard about the 940 Comet? What it’s carrying?” Rose didn’t know this voice, she nearly popped her head up to look through the door window, but thought better of it. It must have been the Doctor, some future incarnation she hadn’t met before.

“Sounds familiar.” Rose wasn’t sure why Jack was being so close lipped, that was exactly the mission he was preparing for.

“Of course it does. It’s your job to keep your ears out for anything suspicious. That’s why we’ve come.” We? “I need all the information you have on it.”

“You think you can just waltz in here and demand that I give you what I’ve got, huh? How about you give me some information back. What happened to Rose Tyler?” 

Rose’s heart rate shot up. “Jack, what the hell are you doing?” She asked into the earpiece. But Jack kept on talking, ignoring her.

“You know, cause I figured she would come visit me eventually. Hard to avoid running into the only other immortal person on the planet. But it never happened. So I started looking into it-“

Rose whispered urgently. “Stop it, Jack!”

There was barely a pause. “And you know what I found? Nothing. She never went to the Falklands. She never went anywhere, disappeared off the face of the earth the same day we met again. And I know Rose would never have left you willingly, so what exactly happened to her, huh?”

There was a long pause, and Rose could feel the silence like she was actually in the rom. “How dare you?” The Scottish voice asked, low and carefully controlled. Like it was barely holding back rage.

“Did you think no one would find out?” Jack’s voice was just as dark. “There were holes still linking the two Universes when she disappeared. I bet you shoved her through one of them, just another convenient way to get rid of someone you don’t want around anymore. Cause that’s what happens, Doctor. The people that love you, we’re lucky if we get to die a tragic, heroic death. Everyone else, you abandon. You leave broken people behind everywhere you go.” 

Rose closed her eyes. She realized it wasn’t just her that Jack was talking about. The Doctor had left him behind, too.

“How dare you?” The Doctor asked again. “I would _never_ have left her if I had another choice!” He snarled, his voice rising into a yell, startling her. “She was dying in this universe, Jack! I made the choice, because no one else could. It’s what I always do! Make the choice! And do you really think I haven’t spent every single second of every day wishing that I didn’t? I would take it back if I could, but it’s done now, and she’s gone! Alright?!” He stopped, and Rose could imagine it, whoever he was now, panting with emotion. A broken look in his new eyes.

Jack didn’t say anything, and when the Doctor spoke up again, he was much more calm. “Now, can we have the information on the 940 Comet or not?”

“Fine,” Jack said, calm as well. “It’s in my office. A file on the desk.”

Rose froze, what the hell was Jack doing?

“Clara, if you would be so kind?” The Doctor said, and Rose could hear footsteps approaching the office. “Good seeing you, Jack.”

The door creaked open, and Rose peered up at Clara Oswald. Oddly, Clara recognized her as well. They stared at each other for a moment, sizing each other up. Rose put her finger up to her lip in a shushing motion, and Clara mimed it back with a knowing smile. She reached over Rose to grab the file, and left the office, closing the door behind her like there had been nothing out of the ordinary.

———

In the year 2123, Rose and Jack found themselves in what was once South Carolina in the United States. The New Religious Union, a conglomerate of states that were only vaguely still under control of the US, had experienced strange calamity after calamity. From a tidal wave that wiped out the city of Richmond, to plague in northern Georgia, to an outbreak of parasites destroying crops across the union.

The people of the New Religious Union thought that witches were to blame, Rose and Jack were more inclined to believe it was aliens. Too many strange coincidences. They’d discussed the case on the plain, but there wasn’t much they could do until they got their boots on the ground.

The investigation was cut abruptly short when they arrived to their hotel in Charleston, because in the street in front of it, there was a thick crowd, making it impossible for them to actually get inside. Rose and Jack gave each other a look, and having almost a second sense for trouble, they pushed their way through the crowd towards the front, where blue-clad officers were holding the shouting horde back. 

“Witch!” The crowd spat. “Burn, witch!” Rose could feel the malice coming off of them in waves, and she turned to see what exactly had them so full of hate. Her stomach dropped, and she let out a gasp of horror.

A child, not any more than ten years old, being let towards a wooden pyre. His head down, hanging, like he was so used to the jeers that they couldn’t possibly hurt him anymore. “No!” Rose shouted, ducking under one of the policemen, not thinking twice. She ran flat out for the child, but felt hands grabbing out at her. She fought at the restraints, her eyes meeting the boys.

As she struggled, she heard Jack shouting her name, and she turned, seeing him struggling against more police. Her view of him was cut off by someone coming to stand in front of her. Whoever it was faced the crowd, his arms spread wide. “Exactly as I thought! The boy’s execution has served it’s purpose, to lure the true master witches out of hiding!” The crowd cheered, chanting something that sounded vaguely like a prayer. “The time where we lived in fear is at it’s end.” Rose met Jack’s eyes, knowing where this was going. “The witches will burn!”

———

Rose woke up in pain. She was vaguely aware that she’d been asleep for days, in a healing coma. She sat up in the bed, taking a look down at her aching body. The skin was nice and pink, luckily. When she’d been pulled off the pyre she’d looked like a hotdog that had fallen into a campfire.

She scanned the room, and saw Jack. He was looking much better, his skin blistered and red like he’d gotten a wicked sunburn, and his hair had burned off, leaving him with a buzz cut. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a charcoal briquet, pulling her off of the fire as she’d burned, having already been burned himself.

Neither of them was in a particularly good mood, either. “Morning,” Jack said, looking up from the screen in his hands.

“How long was I out?”

“Six days,” He said as she got up. Her legs wobbled underneath her. She may have been looking better, but she was feeling it just as much. “I did some research while you were out,” He handed her the screen to look at. “I narrowed down the center of where all the calamities have been happening,” She tapped the screen and a map popped up, zoomed in on a small cabin in the woods that looked like it had been built sometime in the 20th century. “Based on the readings in the area, and what’s been going on, my guess that we’ve got a rogue Time Beast. Which is your area.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. Time Beasts were creatures that were inherently connected to the energy of the Time Vortex, making them impossible to kill, and they travelled from one fixed point in time to another to feed off the energy that they create. The Vast majority of Time Beasts were simply observers, carefully placing themselves near events without interfering. A smaller minority were ones that actively helped the events along on the side of the good guys, Rose knew for a fact that there were at least two of them at the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

An even smaller group caused horrific events to satiate their hunger.

“Okay, so. You take care of the Time Beast,” Jack said, standing up like it didn’t hurt, though Rose knew from the state of his skin that every movement would have been agony. “And I’ll deal with the witch-hunters.”

Rose wanted to ask him what exactly he planned on doing with the witch hunters, but she decided to ask him a different question, because answer he gave could influence whether or not she would actually agree with whatever he was going to do. “What happened to the little boy?”

Jack’s face didn’t change, nothing crossed it. Not anger, not relief, not pain. And even though he didn’t say anything, the silence was answer enough. Rose gave him a grim nod. “Do you what you have to do.”

———

The Time Beast’s cabin was hardly more than a wood shack. Rose couldn’t tell just how old it was, but she got the feeling that it had been empty nearly as long as it had been around. She stepped through the old growth, feeling the summer humidity beating down on her back. Bugs hovered through the air, but they didn’t land on her or try for a bite, possibly because they knew better.

The stairs creaked ominously under her as she pulled the blaster from it’s holster on her lower back. The Time Beast greeted her at the door, wearing a human shape. “Hello, Rose Tyler!” It chirped at her happily, the face that looked like a young woman smiling like it was genuinely glad to see her. Maybe someone else would have been fooled, but Rose could see the sharp teeth hiding under the illusion. “I’m glad to see you survived the fire.”

The Beast turned, and with a wave, it welcomed her inside. Rose felt her insides crawling. Because the second she stepped through the door, she was in the belly of a fixed point in time. The Doctor had once told her that fixed points were something that Time Lords instinctively avoided. Rose could tolerate some, after all her best friend in the world was a walking one, but even then sometimes when she looked at him her head would hurt. This was so much worse. It felt like her whole body was revolting, trying to get her to leave at any cost.

Rose ignored the feeling though, and looked around the room idly, like it was almost boring her. The inside was in much better condition, if a bit dusty, with 50’s decor. The Time Beast plopped itself down on a plaid couch and blinked up at Rose. “Well, watcha’ want?” It asked, voice like bubblegum.

“I want you to stop the mayhem.” Rose kept the blaster very casually in her hand, not trying to hide it, but not directly threatening. “Too many innocent people have died.”

“Oh, that’s sad.” Tears sprang from the creature’s eyes as if on cue, though it’s expression remained still. “But I will not. I am hungry. I need to eat.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Rose said. “It was an instruction. Because if you don’t stop, I will stop you.”

Like flipping a switch, the Time Beasts mannerism changed completely. One moment it looked like a University student, the next its form reflected the monster it really was. The creature rose from the couch and stalked around Rose, it’s form eating in the light in the room, disguising the true monstrosities that made Rose’s skin crawl. “Who are you to stop me? You cannot kill me, I cannot die.”

“You aren’t the first thing I’ve faced that said that.” Rose said, seeing the face of the Dalek god in front of her eyes. “But I don’t want you dead. I just want you to stop hurting people, do what the other Time Beasts do, observe. You don’t need to kill to feed.”

“You are wrong, little girl. I would be sustained by watching, but only pain and death truly satisfy the hunger.” It’s voice was a breath, like the memory was in itself exciting.

“Then I will have to find a way,”

It approached her, the tip of it’s almost canid nose just inches from Rose’s face. “I am directly connected to the Time Vortex, which is eternal. You might kill this form, but I would return. All moments existing as one perfect point.” It shuddered ecstatically. “I see all. I see your future, I know what you desire. _The Doctor._ ” A cold chill went down Rose’s spine. “Let me tell you a secret, child. You will die before the Doctor ever sees you again, they will not even recognize your corpse.” It was taunting her, but it’s voice was gentle. “These eyes will never see their love again, maybe I ought to eat them from your skull.”

Rose took the blaster and shot it between it’s eyes, watching the withering black mass shiver. She crouched next to it as it screamed, her head tilted, staring at it’s pain. “Here’s the thing, Beast. You think that I’m little Red, but you’ve got it wrong.” She pushed her hands into the mass, and the screams got louder, making the whole shack shake. “I’m the Big Bad Wolf. I’m the one with the sharp teeth.”

She closed her eyes and felt, reaching into the creature, through it, all the way to where it’s existence touched the Time Vortex. She felt at the attachments, felt the familiar ache and burn of Time as it tried to swallow her, and she took the Time Beast’s soul into her hands, and she plucked it from the Vortex, eliminating it from all of time. “The better to eat you with, my dear.” She whispered.

The Beast disintegrated in her hands, and for a moment it was just Rose and the Time Vortex, her and the power. She had all the Universe at the tips of her fingers, hers to play with. 

She let go of it with a gasp, suddenly afraid of herself. Her gaze caught her reflection in a mirror, and she what she saw was nearly as inhuman as the Beast.

The Moment’s voice echoed in her head. _I am one of the most dangerous weapons in the Universe. You are another._

———

2178, Rose and Jack were in Kotka, Finland. Vacation. The first one they’d taken in nearly two decades. 

Rose sat in the living room of the suite, flipping through the channels on the telly to find one that happened to be in english while Jack was getting ready. They’d picked this place at random by throwing a dart at a map, and they about to head out to town to explore. Rose huffed, giving up on finding anything, throwing her head back and listening to the newscaster speak, though she couldn’t understand a damned thing.

_Nykypäivän uutisissa pahan susi-aseman astronautit ovat ilmoittaneet, että he eivät enää kykene ylläpitämään epäonnistuneita järjestelmiä,_ the woman was saying.

“Hey, you ready?” Jack said, coming into the suite’s living room, but he paused, listening to the telly. Rose was envious of that, despite all the years since he’d been on the TARDIS, it’s effect still managed to work on him.

“Yup, lemme just-“

_Ja pahoittelemme, että ilmoitamme teille kaikesta viimeisestä viestistä,_

“Wait,” Jack interrupted, holding up a hand, a strange expression on his face.

_astronautit ovat ilmoittaneet meille, että paha susi pitää kuolla._

“What’s she saying?” Rose asked, looking at Jack.

“She said the Bad Wolf must die.”

———

It wasn’t long before they learned what exactly would be the source of Rose’s death. Aliens started attacking, because what else would it have been. Rose and Jack found themselves in a residential neighborhood, trying to help fleeing citizens evacuate from the city. They were both ignoring the message they had gotten as they were loading people into cars and sending them out.

The last car was heading out, and Rose and Jack realized that the civilians might have now been safe, but that they were surrounded by creatures with tentacle-like fur and massive lamprey like teeth. A blaster in each hand, they stood back to back, shooting at the creatures. They held them off for nearly an hour, but eventually one of them got a hold of Rose, shooting one of the tentacles through her abdomen.

She hit the ground, spitting blood, and Jack cursed, using a flash-bang to blind the aliens long enough to grab Rose and drag her to where they were hidden behind a house’s trash bins. Rose stared down at the blood on her hands, her mind racing while Jack was murmuring all sorts of reassuring things to her. “Jack,” She whispered. “I get it now. The Beast said that the Doctor wouldn’t recognize my corpse. I’m going to regenerate. I’m going to see the Doctor again.” She almost choked on the feelings that filled her chest, though maybe that might have been the blood.

He looked at her like she was crazy. “It said you were gonna die, Rose, not regenerate. Die.”

Through the blood, she could see gold start to swim through her veins. “There is more than one way to die.” She murmured. “Quick, your watch. Before I—“ Pain racked through her body, and she had to struggle to hold the transition off. While she was gasping, Jack ripped his watch off of his wrist and held it in his hands. “Immediately after I regenerate,” She gritted out from between clenched teeth. “You need to hold this up to my face. I’ll put all my memories in it, make myself human. Like what the Doctor did the first time, except this time I won’t leave anything in it’s place. I can’t be Time Lord, I need the Doctor to not recognize me.” She gripped Jack’s wrist and looked him in the eyes. “Promise me.”

There was a crash as the aliens got closer, like they were narrowing down their location. Jack’s face was dark. “I promise.”

Rose could feel the fire working it’s way all the way through her body, and she smiled at him. “I’ll see you soon.”

He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “You better.” When he pulled back and moved away from her, there were tears in his eyes.

That was the last thing Rose Tyler saw before she died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak Finnish, so I apologize if I (and by I, I mean google translate), got some things wrong. But I needed it to be Finnish for future-chapter related reasons so oh well.


	7. Susi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman wakes up during the middle of an alien invasion with no memory of who she is or how she got there, only to meet up with a group of Time Travelers that are her only hope of remembering who she was.

When the Woman opened her eyes, all she could see was Chaos. People were running, buildings were burning, and in the sky grey and gold ships were shooting down towards the city. 

Not really the best thing to wake up to.

She got up from where she’d been lying down, apparently passed out halfway behind a garbage bin and a shrub, and looked down at herself. She didn’t appear to be hurt. All of her limbs seemed to be in working order, but something felt off. Like when you step off a moving ride onto a still surface, like you’re body just isn’t quite orientated to the world like it should be.

There was a large bang, and the bricks from the house behind her exploded out, followed by a extremely large purple… Thing. It had fur that moved like it had a mind of its own. And it also had a great many teeth.

The Woman figured she probably ought to be running.

She took off in the opposite direction, ducking into an alley that was too small for the creature to follow her, but she could hear it climbing until it was following her from the rooftops, and she could practically feel the creature’s eyes pounding down on her.

I’m gonna be eaten by a Thing. Okay.

Ahead of her she could see the alley coming to an end and she slowed, cursing her luck. Well, at least it wasn’t like the Creature could get her down here. She looked up, and saw it’s shape changing, making itself longer and thinner. Slowly, it started to crawl downwards, using it’s tentacle-hairs like fingers to lower itself down the alley wall.

Maybe not the safest place to be after all.

The woman looked around, trying to find anything she could use as a weapon, but there was hardly anything other than old newspapers and other assorted trash. She grabbed a hold of a rusted out crowbar and waited. It might not have been much, but at least she might hold out a few moments longer-

“Hello!” A cheery voice said, and the Woman felt herself being dragged backwards by the collar through a door that she knew damn well hadn’t been there a minute ago. A blonde women pushed past her to peak her head through the doorway, made a ‘huh’ noise, and then promptly came back in and closed it back up. “Well, we’re not in the Teara Galaxy I can tell you that.” The blonde said, walking past the Woman towards a massive console where there were three other people. The blonde took a look at a screen on the console. “Ah. We’re in Kotka, Finland, the year 2178. Finland, Teara. Pretty much the same thing.”

“Uhm, excuse me.” The Woman said, and the group turned round to look at her again. “Who are you? Can’t that thing get in here?”

“Right, Questions. Those first.” The blonde shoved her hands in her pockets. “I’m the Doctor. These are my friends, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz.” Each of them gave a little wave as she introduced them. “We’re in my time machine, which also happens to be the safest place in the universe. And as for what’s going on, I think we interrupted a great big alien invasion. Sound right?” The Woman nodded, looking a bit lost. “Brilliant. Now that’s out of the way, what’s your name?”

The Woman blinked. “I… I dunno.”

“Well, I’ve been there before. How long ago did those creatures start attacking?”

“I don’t know.” The woman shook her head and plopped the crowbar on the floor. “I woke up, and they were just there.”

“So you were at home, then?” The girl, Yaz, said stepping forward.

“I was on the ground behind some bins. So unless that was my home…” The woman bit back a snarky comment. She may have been scared, but that didn’t mean that she got to be mean. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything. It’s like I started existing ten minutes ago. There’s absolutely nothing before that.”

“Probably got some sort of head injury. Temporary amnesia.” Ryan piped up.

“Oh, right!” The Doctor nodded. “That’s smart, Ryan!” She ran up to the Woman and placed her hands on either side of the Woman’s head. “Been a while. I’ll be gentle.” 

Both of their eyes closed, and for a moment it felt like the universe slowed. They stared into each other’s minds, listening. “Nope, no head injury.” The Doctor said, dropping her hands abruptly. “But it’s definitely blank in there. Nothing.”

The Woman tried not to roll her eyes. “Thanks.”

Graham piped up. “What did you say about an alien invasion?”

The Doctor gave an excited half-twirl. “In 2177, the earth was designated a 4th-world planet, meaning that other Alien races were given permission to start establishing tentative relations with humanity. So, a ship with Galgamorian ambassadors was sent to make contact. Unfortunately but also not surprisingly, the ship was shot down by the Can-American government. Now in 2178, the Galgamorians were given permission to go to ‘war’” The Doctor made air quotes with her fingers. “with the planet earth. But it’s only going to last six hours and there won’t be any casualties on either side. The peace talks afterwards end up creating a trade agreement that will last the next two hundred years.”

She looked so proud of herself that the Woman felt rude for correcting her. “I’m sorry, Doctor. But that’s not what’s happening out there. It’s not a fake war, it’s a massacre.” She stepped up closer to the group and looked the Doctor in the eyes. “They’re eating people.”

The Doctor’s face stilled and her eyes went dark. “That,” She paused as if she were trying to keep herself calm. “Is very unfortunate for the Galgamorians.”

——— 

“Okay!” The Doctor said, clapping her hands together. “Plan of attack. If we’re gonna figure out how to stop it, we need to figure out why history got changed. Why would the Galgamorians start eating people?” She pondered. “They’re a very intelligent species, gentle, peaceful, and not to mention vegetarian. That’s why they were chosen to come down here, the peaceful bit not the vegetarian bit, because the councils knew they were nice enough to get along with anyone and smart enough to negotiate with any hostile group. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Could it be for revenge?” Ryan asked. “Since the ship got shot down and all.”

“No, see that’s what happened originally. That shouldn’t have affected anything.”

“Excuse me,” The Woman piped up. “Not to be off-topic, but they’ve got great big pointy teeth. Why would a vegetarian species evolve to have pointed teeth?”

“That’s actually a good question, uh…” The Doctor trailed off, not having a name. “Well, uh anyways, on Galgamoros the plants are carnivorous. They had to be able to fight them off first before they could eat them.”

“But if they’re vegetarian, they shouldn’t be eating humans.” Yaz said. “Wouldn’t it make them sick? Like those crazy people that only feed their cats tofu, and then the cats get really sick. They can’t get any nutrients.”

“Someone’s reprogrammed their nature.” The Doctor said, staring off into the distance. “We’ve got to figure out who. How about we go an’ ask? C’mon, fam.” She said with a wave to the group as she charged out of the Tardis.

The woman tried not to laugh at the looks the three gave each other, and followed them out as they left the ship.

———

The team stepped out of the TARDIS into the alley, the Doctor looking curious, the rest of them looking rather nervous. The Galgamorian was gone, apparently having given up on getting inside of the ship, but they could still hear the chaos reigning elsewhere. 

The Woman took a beat to examine the ship. A blue box, what appeared to be made of wood. She followed it around to the back, where there was roughly an inch of space between it and the walls of the alley. Mystified, the Woman waved her hand through the gap. She returned to the group, and pointed at it with her thumb. “It’s bigger on the inside?”

The Doctor nodded. “Yep.”

“It’s alien.” The woman was asking a question, but she didn’t say it that way. Her voice was calm.

“Yep.”

“Are you alien?” The group froze, all of them looking at the Doctor.

Her face was almost business-like, like she was assessing the woman’s reaction. “Yep.”

The Woman let out a shaky breath. “Alright.” She paused. “Okay. I’ll process that later, but we’ve got more important things to deal with right now.”

The Doctor smiled, like she was pleased with how the Woman reacted. The rest of the team let out a collective breath that they hadn’t known they’d been holding. “Very good. So if someone has reprogrammed the Galgamorians deliberately, that must mean whoever did it must have a plan to remain safe during the attack, otherwise why bother. We Just need to figure out where that place is.”

The Woman closed her eyes, thinking. “I ran from the east, where the aliens were attacking. There aren’t nearly as many here. Maybe if we keep heading west…”

Yaz put it together. “You think that they’re avoiding one particular area?”

They smiled at each other. “It’s an idea.”

“Right,” Graham said. “For once we’re actually running away from the danger rather than towards it. I think I like this girl.”

“Well, what are we waiting for!” The Doctor sprang up. “Lets get going.”

———

They made their way slowly out of town, past the residential area through an area that gradually became forested. And it looked like the Woman had been right, the farther West they went, the fewer Galgamorians there were, and the past ten minutes as they were now walking down a deserted road, there were none.

The group spread out until they covered the entire road, The Woman in the back. She kept looking back towards town, felt like there was something back there that she left behind. But she couldn’t remember what it was. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice that Ryan had fallen back until he was walking next to her, his hands shoved into his pockets. “So,” He said. “You really don’t remember anything, do ya?”

“Nope,” She popped the ‘p’ sound. 

“Man, that sucks.” He stopped to consider it. “But hey, y’know when we get this all sorted out, if you still don’t remember, you could ask the Doctor to help you. She’s good like that. Wouldn’t stop looking until she found it.”

The Woman looked up ahead to where The Doctor and Yaz were walking, heads bent together like they were thinking of a game plan. She smiled, her heart warming. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Ryan grinned back. The road started to bend, and they saw a big concrete ahead of them, with the words ‘ _Susi Teollisuudelle_ ’ emblazoned on the side. The Woman and him exchanged a glance, and hurried to catch up with the rest of the team. 

By the time they caught up, the Doctor, Graham and Yaz were reading a sign that was hung up haphazardly on the metal gate blocking off the building. Ryan squinted at it, too, and the Woman looked down at it and huffed. ‘ _Älä mene sisään. Myrkyllisiä kemikaaleja. Vain valtuutettu henkilökunta_ ’.

“Well, we’re definitely ignoring it aren’t we?” Graham asked like he knew the answer.

“Of course,” The Doctor said, pulling out some weird thing from her pockets and turned it on, and it made a buzzing noise as she pointed it towards the lock. “We haven’t seen any Galgamorians for a while, this must be the center of the safe zone.”

The Woman piped up. “Could someone please tell me what the sign says?”

All four heads whipped around to stare at her. “You can’t read Finnish?” The Doctor said, straightening up, the lock in her hands, the gate swinging open in the wind. The Woman shrugged. “Interesting.” She gave The Woman an odd look. “Means you’re not from here, either. Anyways, we’ll have to save that part of the puzzle for later.”

———

The inside of the building had turned out to not be nearly as deserted as the outside of it. The Team had split up to avoid the guards, The Doctor, Graham, and Yaz had gone one way, the Woman and Ryan another. 

They ran into a bathroom, panting, Ryan locking the door behind them while the Woman looked for another exit. She paused in front of one of the mirrors, staring into the reflection. The face was pretty, long features, tan skin and jet-dark hair and eyes. The Woman searched the face, watching the expression change in the reflection like it was really hers. The reflection’s eyes filled with fear. 

Ryan noticed her staring, and he came over and looked in it also. “What’s wrong?”

She took a step back. “Sorry,” She put a hand over her face while she tried to calm down. “It’s just, for a second I thought that it couldn’t be my face.” The Woman looked up at him. “I don’t recognize myself.”

He was gentle. “It’s understandable, you’ve obviously got some sort of memory loss.” There was a banging on the door, like the guards found a battering ram. “Right, we’ve got to find a way out of here.” 

The Woman sniffled, but she was all business again. “Air ducts.” She pointed up at one that was just over the toilet. “You boost yourself up there, then you can pull me up behind you.”

They grinned at each other. Ready to go.

———

By the time they saw the Doctor again, they were in a large room on the second floor, that opened up in the middle so you could look down on what was going on below. Ryan and the Woman creeped up to the scene, still disguised in the darkness. There was some man in a suit, speaking with an American accent, to the Doctor, Graham, and Yaz, who were been held by guards. 

“So what’d you do then, manufacture a crisis to protect your goods? Too afraid of loosing a profit?” The Doctor was saying, defiantly.

The suited man spread his arms wide. “These aliens wanted to bring so many recourses that we would no longer have people that needed jobs, we wouldn’t have any more consumers! That would have absolutely devastated the world economy. We were forced to make sure that no one would want anything to do with the aliens, let alone make trade deals with them.”

“It would have devastated your pocket, maybe.” Yaz spat. “but for the rest of the world, it would have made their lives so much better!”

“The ‘rest of the world’ serve a purpose. But see, you three, you all are completely useless to me.”

———

“Good god,” Ryan whispered, knowing where this was going. “We’ve got to get them out of there.”

“I’ve got an idea.” The Woman said, pulling a blaster out from her back pocket. She fiddled with it, changing the settings.

“Where the hell did you get a gun?”

“Stole it off one of the guards.” She found the right setting, and the blaster made a clicking noise. “Stun setting. It’ll knock them out for at least ten minutes. We’ve got that long to get to the control center and reverse whatever they did to the Galgamorians. I need you to distract them long enough for me to shoot the guards with this. Got it?”

Ryan nodded, but then he thought better of it. “The Doctor doesn’t like guns.”

The Woman smiled at him, enjoying herself. “Shame, I think I love them.” She took the safety off. “Ready?”

———

Ryan was babbling, and the Woman crawled to a space where she could see everyone. Calm as could be, she aimed the blaster, and one by one, she took the guards down. However, the noise summoned a horde of even more of them. The Woman could hear them running down the halls while the group, excluding Ryan since he’d been in on the plan, was processing what had just happened.

The Woman ran out of her hiding spot just as the rest of the guards were rounding the corner into the room. The Woman grabbed the Doctor’s hand, and with a big grin, she looked at the group. “Run!”

———

They walked back to the city in silence, past the fires and general calamity. The Galgamorians looked nearly entirely different, their tentacle hairs slicked down against their bodies to make something that looked nearly human, and even though they still had pointy teeth, they now had lips so that you didn’t have to see them. And even though they looked like they were filled with shame, probably for hurting people even though they didn’t want to, they were still helping people, treating the wounded and moving debris out of the roads.

They might have saved the day, but The Woman could tell that The Doctor was mad at her about the whole gun thing, even if no one actually got hurt. The Woman didn’t feel guilty, she would have done it again, but for some reason it hurt for the Doctor to be mad at her.

They arrived at the TARDIS, and the Doctor led the way in, followed by the rest of the gang. The door closed, and the Woman stopped and stared, not sure what to do or what was going to happen. After a few seconds, the door opened and the Doctor popped her head through and looked at the Woman. “Well, are you coming or not?”

The Woman smiled and stepped through the door, but once she was in, the smile fell off her face. “Are you sure?” She kept one hand on the handle, ready to leave. “I thought you were ma-“

The Doctor flipped a switch on the console. “I was. But you need my help remembering who you are.”

“And the Doctor always helps people when they need it.” Yaz smiled, her eyes only for the Doctor, and the Woman put two and two together. Yaz was totally one hundred percent smitten. 

Not that the Woman could blame her.

“But,” The Doctor said. “If you’re gonna come with us, we’ve got to have something to call you other than ‘hey, you.’ So, pick something.” She leaned her elbows on the console and waited.

The Woman thought about it, scouring her brain for names, any of them. She thought back, and remembered the place that was controlling the Galgamorians, it had just been a business, once, and the sign was still on the side of it. _Susi Teollisuudelle_. That first word was almost a name, and besides, it only made sense that the first thing she encountered in her new life would decide who she was.

Slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Call me Susi.”

———

———

———

They were having a quiet night on the TARDIS, or at least Yaz, the Doctor, and Susi were. Ryan and Graham had wanted to sleep in their own beds, which Yaz thought sounded like a great idea, too, but she was far too curious about the new girl. And for some reason, she didn’t like the way Susi and the Doctor kept looking at each other, like they both thought the other was familiar, but they couldn’t place the face.

And it wasn’t jealousy. Yaz wasn’t jealous, she didn’t do that, not even when she was a teenager. There was something off about it.

Yaz sat down in what was almost a living room inside of the Tardis, her knees up close to her as she had a book propped up on her legs that she was leafing through absentmindedly. There was a clicking noise, and Susi peeked her head into the room. She gave Yaz a smile, “Alright if I come in?”

“Of course,” Yaz said, straightening up and patting the cushion next to her. She watched Susi approached, noticing the change in wardrobe, to something closer to what Yaz was wearing rather than the 22nd century clothes that she had been in, except for the watch. That had stayed. “Trust me, if I wanted privacy, the Tardis wouldn’t have even shown there was a door to the room. It’s good about stuff like that.”

Susi paused, her eyebrows scrunched together. “The ship? It’s sentient?”

Yaz nearly giggled. Right, she might be wary of the newcomer, but she still liked her. “That’s what the Doctor says, but she also calls it a ‘She’ and has an almost comfortable attachment to it.”

“Thank god,” Susi said, plopping herself on the couch across from Yaz, but facing her, like they were at a slumber party. “The ship’s been talking to me ever since I stepped on board. Thought I was crazy, which considering as I don’t have any memory, that’s not too big a leap.”

Talking to her? Like with words? Yaz put that out of her head for a second. “What did the Doctor say when she did the full examination?”

“I’m human,” Susi sighed. “But I think I probably could have just told her that. Physiologically, I fit perfectly with humans of the 22nd century, and the Doctor thinks I likely lived somewhere in Europe, since I speak English, German, and French. Which the scan apparently tells her. But,” She fiddled with her watch, unsure. “She said that I had traces of Time Vortex on me, which means that sometime before I lost my memory I had interacted with a Time Traveller.”

“What could that mean?” Yaz asked.

Susi sniffed. “The Doctor said that there are some… sketchy industries out there that utilize Time Travel and make a habit of erasing people’s memories when they get to be an inconvenience. I might have been in one of them, or maybe I got in their way. Either way, it’s a place to start looking.” There was a moment where they were both quiet, thinking, but eventually Susi gave Yaz a shaky smile. “What’re you reading?

Yaz smiled back and flipped the book closed to show her the cover. “Some history book. Haven’t been paying much attention to it. ’S About a series of events called the Bad Wolf Conspiracy.”

———

_Wake up!_ Two words, clear as day, punched through Susi’s dreams. Her eyes popped open and she sat up in the bed. The room was plain, bed, mirror, and a set of drawers that had Susi’s one pair of clothes in. It was also empty, which baffled her sleep-addled brain. She could have sworn she heard someone talking to her. 

“Hello?” She asked the air, feeling rather silly.

There was a thrum, like the room responded, and Susi held in a sigh. Of course, it just had to be the Tardis that had woken her up. It had stopped talking to her sometime after she’d spoken with Yaz, and she figured it had finally given up on her understanding it.

The room thrummed again, so apparently not.

“What d’you want?” She asked, and through her hands, it felt like the ship was pushing something at her, like it was trying to get through her to send a message. But whatever it was, it wasn’t working. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

The door to the room flung open. Alright, that was a clear enough statement. Susi got up, adjusting the borrowed pajamas, and left the room. Earlier, the hallway had stretched in both directions, lit up with orange and purple crystals, but now it only went to the left, and the walls were course and rough, with pillars sticking out from the sides to the roof in weird alien patterns. 

Curious, Susi padded down the hallway, wandering absentmindedly, passing by door after door, until the floor shocked her feet when she tried to move any farther forward. She stopped and looked around, seeing a door that was just slightly open. The moment she started paying more attention to it, the light inside flicked on.

For some reason, this felt like this was the Tardis’s way of talking to her like she was a toddler. Speaking slowly and using small words.

Susi pushed the door farther open cautiously. “Hello?” She asked again, and a gust of wind from behind pushed her further, until she was all the way in the room.

Another bedroom, Susi thought. Except this one was way different from hers. It looked like someone actually was supposed to live here. The walls were very carefully painted pink, to match the sheets on the big canopied bed in the middle. The comforter was still askew, like whoever lived here didn’t bother making the bed before they left. There was a cozy little chair in one corner, and on the other end of the room was a big wood dresser, with pictures on it.

There wasn’t any dust, but Susi felt like no one had been in this room for a long, long time.

She made her way to the dresser to peek at the pictures, no longer feeling like she was spying. There was a blonde girl in nearly all of them. Blonde girl posing with a handsome dark haired man. Blonde girl with a different, black, laddish type man, arms around each other in a hug. Blonde girl again, an older woman on her left that looked an awful lot like her. Blonde girl, grinning up at the camera like it was a selfie, and behind her, a man with a buzz cut and leather jacket who was looking at the camera like he didn’t entirely expect to have a picture taken at the moment.

Susi felt like she knew the man. Her hand reached up to grab the picture frame, but she was distracted by a little red book that was tucked behind it. She grabbed it instead, getting a quick look at the circular designs on the cover when she head a noise behind her.

Startled and a little guilty, she spun around, hiding the book behind her. The Doctor was standing in the doorway, an oddly pained expression on her face. Susi swallowed. “Sorry,” She whispered. “Couldn’t sleep, and the light was on. Is this your room?”

It took a while for the Doctor to answer. “Ah, no it isn’t. It used to be a friend of mine’s, but the room disappeared when she…” Susi read between the lines. The pretty blonde girl must have been the friend. And she must have died. “It’s been hundreds of years since I’ve seen it.”

There was a very very long awkward pause, until Susi mumbled something about getting back to bed and scuttled past the Doctor, hurrying back to her room, her face red. 

Susi shut the door behind her and leaned against it. “Thanks for that,” She said grumpily out loud, and even though there was no response, she felt like the Tardis was having a laugh at her expense.

She realized that she still had the book in her hands, she held it up to look at it, and the circular script was gone, replaced by two simple words: _Bad Wolf_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was shaping up to be one massive chapter, so I cut it off here rather than where I had planned on getting to rather than having a 10k+ chapter. I hope you all enjoyed!


	8. Returned

They’d tried three different Time Agencies, with absolutely zero luck. Susi was obviously starting to give up, which only made the Doctor more enthusiastic in her efforts. The Doctor hated feeling like she was failing someone, especially someone she cared about, and Susi was starting to become one of those people.

But there were some things that felt… Off about Susi. For one, she was so unfazed by the strange things that they encountered that the Doctor wondered what exactly it could have been that Susi was doing before she lost her memory that made her so easy going about aliens and monsters and time travel. Time Agent was the most likely choice, but it was also the most troubling. Time Agents at best were harsh enforces of the Universe, and at their worst, they were assassins and murderers, with most of them falling somewhere between. 

All of them were on some level okay with killing.

There was also the fact that the Tardis was acting strange whenever Susi was onboard. Like it was waiting for a pin to drop. All of Her attention was on Susi, but not like She thought that Susi was a threat, but that she was a great curiosity.

And there was also the fact that She kept letting her into places that She hadn’t let anyone into, both in a long while and ever. Areas of the library that should have been blocked off, engine rooms close to the Tardis’s core, Rose Tyler’s bedroom.

The room had disappeared the same day that the old Doctor had taken Rose’s memory and sealed her away in the alternative universe. Her old self had spent years looking for it, racked with guilt and grief. And he hadn’t even been able to ask the Tardis what She had done with it, because She had stopped speaking to him for nearly a century after Rose was gone.

And then, like it was nothing, the room had popped back into existence. The Doctor, psychically connected to the ship, had felt it. She hadn’t even questioned it when she started running, the halls getting older and older like peeling away layers of paint, until the Tardis looked the same as when she and Rose had first met.

She’d flung the door open, half expecting to see Rose curled up in the reading nook, her little red book in her lap, trying to decipher the Gallifreyan script . The same way she’d caught her a thousand times a thousand years ago.

But of course Rose hadn’t been there. 

Just Susi, in some of Yaz’s borrowed jammies, looking guilty. She’d run away, leaving the Doctor alone with all she’d lost.

No, not lost. Destroyed. Her fault. Hers.

But the Doctor wasn’t going to fail anyone again. So she doubled down on her efforts, and after that third Time Agency, with her whole gang sitting around the Tardis looking rather depressed, she had an idea that even she wasn’t particularly happy about. “I’ve got a friend…” She began, musing out loud. “Well, sort of a friend. Okay we were friends, now he kind of hates me. Acquaintance? Either way, he used to be a Time Agent, before they took away two years of his memories. Maybe he could help us.”

“Why does he hate you?” Yaz asked, like this was a surprising thing for her to hear.

“Long story,” The Doctor stared at Susi, who just fiddled with her watch. “But we could check it out.”

Susi shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”

———

They were back in the year 2178, except now they were in London, on what looked like a residential street, with Susi back in the clothes she’d been wearing when they met and looking a little relieved about it. 

The Doctor very casually marched the gang up the steps to just an ordinary little house, to which she gave a little knock. They all waited patiently, and eventually a young black man that looked awful familiar opened the door. The Doctor gave him a shocked look. “Mickey Smith?” She asked.

“William Smith.” He retorted, taking in the group. He peeked his head past them, looking down each side of the street, and his eyes rested on the Tardis, parked on the corner. “Mickey Smith is my great great grandad. You must be the Doctor… and compatriots.”

“Two greats?” The Doctor’s voice was mystified like she was just now processing the passage of time.

“Yeah. You here for Jack?”

“Yes. Yes we are. Is he in?”

William stepped back to let them in. “You’re lucky, he just got back from a mission. Though it didn't go well, so tread lightly.” They all dutifully stepped inside, but rather than follow them, William walked out the door and down the street. The gang watched him go, and then when he was out of sight, they let the door closed and looked down at the Doctor, who shrugged.

The Doctor led the way into the depths of the house, which gradually shed the camouflage of suburban-ity as they kept going, until it revealed itself in its entirety, a large open area filled with immense technology, computers and screens filling the entirety of the center, large wires running across the ceiling, and many many weapons covering the walls. Surprisingly empty for it’s size, though there was a reasonable amount of technicians running around.

One of them spotted the group, and tapped his jaw next to his ear. “Captain, I think you've got visitors.” As he said that, a hush fell over the other workers, and they turned to look at a door on the side of the room, like they’d heard someone say something that the gang didn’t. It was decidedly intimidating.

Yaz, Graham, and Ryan almost subconsciously moved closer to each other, aware of all the weapons and the potential of danger. Susi was watching the whole scene, her body language very carefully projecting calm, but the others would be able to tell how tense she was. 

The Doctor was unimpressed.

Finally, the door opened, showing a handsome dark haired man in a military jacket. Well built, but his eyes were cold as he examined the group, his eyes passing over all of them. Maybe the Doctor was seeing things, but she could have sworn his gaze lingered for a second on Susi.

There was a beat.

“Well, well.” Jack said, crossing the floor. “It’s certainly nice to see you again.”

———

“Look, alright, I know you don’t like me any more but I need your help.” The Doctor said. The group was sitting around a table in what looked like an average 21st century office break room, complete with coffees sitting in front of them.

“Why else would you come over?” Jack said, sipping his coffee. He kept his eyes on Susi, like he was almost deliberately ignoring the Doctor. He put the mug down and leaned his elbows on the table, examining her. “What’s your name, gorgeous?” His voice was smooth and deep, deliberate, to see what kind of reaction the Doctor would give to the tone.

“Stop flirting,” She warned, grumpy.

“I can’t ask her name?” He winked at Susi.

“For you, that’s flirting.”

Susi rolled her eyes. “I’m Susi.” She paused, blinked at Jack. “I know you,” There was a hushed silence, and she blushed. “Sorry, no not like that. I’ve just seen his picture. In your friends room.”

“My picture?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow, dropping the flirty persona.

“It’s not important.” The Doctor replied, her voice cold.

“What friend?” Graham was asking.

“Yeah, Doctor.” Jack narrowed his eyes. “What friend?”

She let out a sigh. “Rose Tyler.”

There was a sudden commotion as everyone other than Susi reacted to what she said. Ryan sat up, his eyes flickering between the Doctor and Yaz, whose face had gone very carefully blank. Graham sat back into his chair, like he was too tired to deal with this. Jack’s face and body stilled completely, like he was torn somewhere between shock and rage, and maybe even grief.

It was Yaz that spoke again, her voice like the calm before a storm. “You still keep your ex girlfriend’s room on the Tardis?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that, Yaz.” The Doctor whispered, looking right at her, her heart in her eyes.

There was a stare-off.

Susi threw her hands up. “Right, who the hell is Rose Tyler? Other than an ex. Why’s she got you all worked up?”

There was another stare off, except this time, it was the Doctor, Jack, and Yaz. Jack had obviously pieced together the way Yaz felt about the Doctor, and he and Susi realized at about the same time that the Doctor felt the same. 

Jack broke the staring contest by leaning far down into his chair. He gave them all a salute with his coffee cup. “Like the Doctor said, it’s complicated. What do you need from me?”

It almost gave the Doctor whiplash, the complete change in how willing he was to go along with them all. She spared one last look towards Yaz, who was looking down at her cup, her foot tapping erratically with nerves, before getting back to business. “I need any information you might have on Time Agents, under what circumstances they might erase a persons memories, why they would have done so, if there have been any on earth recently, especially within the last week or so.”

“Why the sudden interest in Time Agents?”

The Doctor looked at Susi, who nodded her permission. “Susi here has lost all of her memory. No signs of head injury, but right before it happened she must have interacted with some sort of time traveller. And other than Time Agents, I don’t know of any time travelers with a vested interest in erasing memories.”

Jack snorted and put his cup down. “Wish I could help, but if I knew the secret to how and why Time Agents erased memories, we probably wouldn’t have ever met. And I’d have been a lot better for it, too.”

“And you haven’t seen any Time Agents recently?”

“Hard to believe it, but earth isn’t really a priority money making place. You’d be hard pressed to find one of them more than once a millennia. Sorry, but there haven’t been any. Can’t help you.” He stood up and pushed his chair in. He moved to leave the room, but he paused by Susi and put a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up at him, his eyes were gentle. “I really am sorry, kid. Good luck.” He waved. “You know where the door is. Let yourselves out.”

———

When they were back inside the Tardis, Susi pulled the Doctor aside to talk. “Listen, this whole thing is going no where, and y’know it’s just depressing everyone, so maybe we could just put this asi-“

“I’m not giving up on you-“ The Doctor interrupted.

“-and I’m not asking you to give up.” Susi interrupted right back, raising her eyebrows. She waited until the Doctor backed down before continuing. “Let’s just take a break. Do something fun. I dunno, help someone that isn’t me. I know I need it, and they,” She waved at the group. “Definitely need it, too.”

“You sure?”

Susi smiled. “Yeah.”

“Something fun?” The Doctor asked like she was thinking. “Alright.” She walked back out towards the group. “What do you all think of a vacation? How about Los Angeles?”

———

The gang was at the beach, having fought their way through the vast horde of people to find themselves a spot on the crowded sands by the Santa Monica pier. It was summer, so of course the place was absolutely packed. Ryan and the Doctor were both swimming, struggling against the strong pacific currents to see who could get the farthest. Graham was sunning, sunglasses and sunscreen on, listening to music on Ryan’s headphones and snoring occasionally. Yaz was enjoying the scenery, contentedly watching the people, the water, and the seagulls. She was having the time of her life, which was nice for putting some certain things out of her mind.

“Hey,” Susi said, plunking herself down next to Yaz. She had a ice-cream cone in one hand and a Popsicle in the other. “Which you want? I asked, they’re both halal.”

“Mm, popsicle, thanks.” Yaz took the popsicle and tasted it. Some sort of vague berry flavour.

“They’re also apparently vegan, gluten free, and organic.” Susi laughed. “Who’d have known something could be all four at once.”

“Only in Los Angeles,” Yaz said. They sat in happy silence for a while, just relaxing. Watching the Doctor and Ryan, who’d apparently joined in on a volley ball game while the Doctor went over to talk to some sort of painter on the beach.

Susi looked over at Yaz, saw where her eyes were, and she smiled. “You in love with her?” She asked, bold as could be, since she already knew the answer.

“Yup.” Yaz said, and peered out of the corners of her eyes at Susi, who was giving her an amused look. “You?”

“I dunno,” She sighed, fiddling with her watch. “I’ve only just met her, but I think I’m leaning that way.” There was a moment where she was silent, thinking. “It doesn’t seem fair for me to love her, you know? I might have been a horrible person before I met you all. It’d be selfish of me to feel that way, not knowing the whole picture.” They weren’t upset. The conversation didn’t change their relationship, just defined the outside factors affecting it. For a good while, they sat there, enjoying the sunshine and listening to Graham snore. Eventually, Susi smiled at Yaz. “She likes you back.”

Yaz looked up at her, saw the smile was genuine and returned it. “Yeah?”

Susi bumped her with her shoulder. “Yeah.” And they laughed. 

———

There was a time, when they’d gotten caught in the middle of an interstellar war.

Death had been imminent. The Doctor had shoved the gang into the Tardis and sent it flying while she stayed behind, to save them. It landed in Sheffield, a week after Yaz, Ryan, and Graham had stepped onboard the most recent time. 

“No! No!” Yaz cried, banging on the control panel. She’d tried everything, pulled all the levers, twirled all the knobs. Nothing. “Take me back!”

The other three watched, filled with grief. No idea what to do. Susi could feel waves of sadness pouring into her from the Tardis. Three hearts were breaking, The Tardis’s, Yaz’s, and hers.

Abruptly, she stood upright, feeling what was almost a memory tingling in the back of her mind. _Take me back!_ She moved forward, towards the controls, her feet feeling like lead. By the time she reached Yaz, her mouth was dry. She grabbed her hand, her watch glittering gold in the light, and they met each other's eyes.

Yaz nodded at her. For a moment, they understood each other.

Susi kneeled next to the console, pressed her cheek against the metal. “Don’t ask me how,” She said, speaking to the Tardis. “But I know that it’s possible to crack you open, use what’s inside your heart to return to the Doctor.” The great machine paused, felt like it was waiting. “I don’t want to do that. But I will. She’s in danger. Please. Help her.”

There was a groan, and all of a sudden, the Tardis shuddered, rocketing the gang around. Yaz caught Susi as she fell back, and their hands clasped together. Whatever happened, they were going to save the woman they both loved.

———

Once they were out of danger, the Doctor had demanded they explain how they all got back, but the gang refused to say. They’d only looked at each other, a smile in their eyes. Finally, Yaz had spoken up. “We asked nicely.”

———

“Thought you were taking us to see the fall of the Berlin Wall?” Ryan asked, his head poking out of the Tardis door while the rest of the gang were finishing up getting ready, decked out in their late 80’s gear and suitably poof-y hair. Susi was slipping a bottle of Champagne into her bag while the Doctor was helping Yaz with her makeup and Graham was putting snacks and an era-appropriate camera into his fanny pack.

“I am. Great time. It’s actually a fixed point in history, did you know that?” The Doctor said. “Time is always fluid and changing, but this will always happen.”

“Fantastic!” Susi chirped, and the Doctor’s head swiveled to look at her, eyes squinting for a second. Examining.

Ryan popped his head right back in. “This ain’t the Berlin Wall.”

The rest of them gave each other looks before moving out as a group out of the doors, and what they saw made them stop in their tracks.

They were on what looked like a series of asteroids tied together by great big glittering bridges. The outer rocks were much smaller and had towering buildings, like a blocks of flats, but the one they were on looked like the Roman Forum, with glittering jewel-like pillars and fires burning every few feet to light it up. People, both human-like and distinctly alien, walked by, paying the group no heed. Most of them had books or backpacks, some carried see-through screens that they tapped as they moved. 

“Take a look at that,” Graham said, pointing, and the gang turned around to see, plastered in massive letters, surrounded with massive flames to light it up, the words: _Universitas Malum Lupum._

“Ugh,” Yaz groaned. “Can’t believe I’m back in University.”

There was a very polite throat clearing from behind the group, and they turned to see an absolutely miniature alien, maybe only a meter tall. Pinkish skin, with thick brown hair slicked down around it’s head, which was almost bird-like. Complete with a shiny suit and one of those see-through screens, it gave the group an examining look. “Excuse me, are you Susi and Guests?”

The Doctor raised her eyebrows, and Susi gave her a look that conveyed that she didn't have any idea either. The Doctor gave a little nod, indicating her to go along with it. 

Susi cleared her throat. “Yep. That’s me.”

“Right,” The little alien nodded at them all. “My name is Alexanderos, and I will be your tour guide. On behalf of UML, I would like to thank you for your interest in our University. As you know, in addition to being the only University in the Paha System that accepts orphans, we are extremely prestigious. Since you managed to get a Campus Tour on rush order, then you are a highly valued applicant, and we hope that you choose to attend.” He paused. “We will need a surname before we can begin the tour, first.”

“I, um, don’t have one.” Susi replied, shooting the Doctor a look.

“Not a problem,” Alexanderos typed something onto the screen. “Any orphan applicants that do not have a family name will be registered under Paha, for the star system we reside in. Please sign,” He held out the screen and a little pen.

There was a signature box, and above it was in large letters: Paha, Susi.

She signed, more amused than worried at this point.

The little alien stood at attention. “Very well, if you all would follow me.”

The group dutifully followed Alexanderos. The crowds parted away from him almost subconsciously, like they could feel the aura of authority that he radiated. Yaz caught up to Susi and they looped their arms together as they walked, easy friends. Yaz leaned in and whispered. “Just on the off chance, you didn’t apply here, right?”

“Nope,” Susi replied. “Must be some mistake.”

“Or a conspiracy!” The Doctor said, an excited look on her face. “I love a good conspiracy, so long as no one’s getting hurt. Besides, this is a whole different culture to experience! I’ve never been to the Paha System before, but even with that I’ve still heard of this University. Long History.”

“Ah, yes. Speaking of our History,” Alexanderos stopped in front of a Romanesque statue of a man in robes, at his side an eye-less wolf. “Our founder, Lupus Mal. He was an orphan, his parents lost in the great war. Being that the Paha society considers Orphans to be a burden, as they are divorced from family claims, Lupus was at a grave disadvantage in life. But he took great interest in an old earth story, of world creators that had also been orphans, raised as Wolves. Taking this story in stride, he grew to become one of the most powerful people in three galaxies, and he established this University so that no other parent-less children would be without opportunity.”

“I know that story!” Ryan said. “The origin of Rome, yeah? Romulus and Remus were raised in a cave by a wolf.”

Alexanderos shook his head. “Don’t be silly. That’s just a fairy tail. This was real, I’m talking about the Bad Wolf.”

———

The Doctor felt like the Universe had stopped its movement under her feet. The breath rushed out of her lungs, and suddenly she was rather lightheaded. “Bad Wolf?” She asked, her voice trembling as she looked around her, watching for threats.

Susi was giving the Doctor a strange look, and her question was as much for the Doctor as it was for Alexanderos. “What’s the Bad Wolf?”

A voice whispered in the Doctor’s ears, one she hadn’t heard in over a thousand years. _I am the Bad Wolf._ It said. _I take the words, I scatter them,_ “Not a what. A who.” _A message to lead myself here_. The Doctor’s hearts were racing faster than they ever had. “I’ve- I’ve got to go.” She whispered, and she almost stumbled over her feet running back towards the Tardis.

Distantly, she heard footsteps running behind her, and she stopped just short of the Tardis doors, felt the sensation of multiple bodies crashing into her back as she stood stock-still. She stared at the sign that was ringed by flames, watching the Words slowly shift until they read a different language. Universitas Malum Lupum. University of the Bad Wolf.

———

“Seriously, Doctor. What the hell’s going on?” Yaz was demanding. The Tardis had started moving the second they were all in, without anyone piloting it. And now it was parked in the middle of space, with nothing but galaxies burning around it. “Who is the Bad Wolf? What do the words mean?”

“Nothing good,” She said, staring stone-faced into the middle distance. “Every time the words ‘Bad Wolf’ appear, something terrible follows. The last time I heard it was the day I lost my planet.”

“But you said ‘who’, Doctor.” Susi folded her arms. “So, who is it? Are they dangerous? Should we be worried?”

“An old friend…” The Doctor whispered. “Meant more to me than anything. And I betrayed her, for a good reason, but still… she would be long dead. And the words are showing up without her… then we should definitely be worried.”

———

They stepped off of the Tardis onto what looked like a completely empty warehouse, or at least one that was stark white in all directions, and so bright that it almost hurt your eyes to look at. It had been Graham’s idea to go here, track down the center of the ‘Bad Wolf’ appearances, figuring that wherever they generated from would likely have answers as to why they were happening.

Not that there looked like there was much to find. As the gang spread out, they didn’t find anything, not any sign that anyone had been in this place for hundreds of years, no writings or even windows or doors. Just a massive, blank room.

As they were walking, Ryan noticed something, a line on the floor only slightly a darker shade of white than the rest of the floor around it. As he followed it, he noticed that there were more lines, making five grey boxes on the floor. He called the Doctor over to look, but the moment that she stood next to him, a long siren noise rang out in the room, and walls slammed up around them, generated from the grey lines.

Ryan and the Doctor were trapped in one, Graham, Yaz, and Susi all isolated in separate ones. They could see through the walls, which were only slightly opaque. Each of the rooms had just one single door. No lock, no handle, no hinges. Just about 3 centimeters of space between the bottom of it and the floor. 

The Doctor ran to one of the walls, the one facing the room Yaz was trapped in, and they met each other’s eyes. The Doctor placed her palm flat on the wall, trying to radiate calm, and eventually Yaz did the same, trusting that no matter what, the Doctor would find a way to save her.

Since she was looking at the Doctor, she didn’t see the monster that came into the room. The Doctor gasped. “No no no no,” She said, fishing through her pockets, hunting for her phone. She grabbed it and dialed the number as fast as she could, listening with agonized baited breaths as it rang and rang.

“What is it?” Ryan was asking, pounding on the Wall, trying to break through it. He was watching the monster approach Yaz, too, and his skin had turned an ashy grey with fear for her. “Doctor, what is it?” 

“A Grief Beast.” She said. “They show you the things you hate most about yourself, feed it to you and exaggerate it until the grief kills you. They’re machines, weapons of war, and outlawed in nearly every galaxy.” The phone kept ringing. “C’mon, Yaz!”

“Doctor?” Ryan asked, fear filling his voice. She spun around, and the door was open, the Grief beast walking in, it’s face blank and flat, a stark contrast the flesh-and-machinery of it’s body.

The Doctor spun back around to face him. “It’s not real, okay. Nothing it shows you is real.” She walked, backwards, not looking at the monster as she approached it. Even though she wasn’t actually looking at it, which diluted the effect, she could still feel it buzzing on the sides of her mind. The closer she got, the more it hurt. 

She pulled the Sonic out of her pocket, but soon the pain made her double over and grip her skull. _Doctor, you take ordinary people and you turn them into weapons._ “Ah!” She cried out and shut her eyes. The Grief Beast was right behind her, pulling the memories from where they were buried deep down, yanking them from her and putting them where she had no choice but to look at them.

The Dalek. _I see beauty, I see divinity, I see hatred!_

Donna. _Being with you, I can't tell what's right and what's wrong anymore._

Amy. _What’s the point of you?_

The Emperor. _Behold the Doctor, the Great Exterminator!_

Jack. _The people that love you, we’re lucky if we get to die a tragic, heroic death. Everyone else, you abandon. You leave broken people behind everywhere you go._

_I couldn’t save your world! I couldn’t save any of them!_

_How many will die in your name?_

_I have a way to save you. I have a way to save both of you. I have to take away everything that was Time Lord, make you human again. But you’ll have to forget me._

There were two shaky hands on the sides of her face. “It’s not real. It’s not real.” Ryan was saying. She pried open her eyes, felt the tears on her face. When she looked up at him, his skin was grey and his nose was bleeding, like he’d already felt the brunt of what the Grief Beast had thrown at him and survived it. “It’s not real Doctor.”

But it was. Everything was real. She nodded at Ryan, picked up the Sonic from where it had hit the ground, and turned, feeling every bone in her body ache. 

The blank face was gone, replaced with one she knew all too well. Upturned nose, big brown eyes, thick mascara. Grimly, the Doctor took her sonic and pointed it at the face. By the time the thing exploded, she was calm again.

———

_Yaz was a kid again, back in school. She walked through the locker room, trying to ignore the way people were looking at her. She was fourteen, had just come out to her family, and when that went well, she’d gone on Facebook and proudly announced to the world and all her schoolmates that she was gay._

_Her family had been super supportive, but school was an entirely different thing._

_“I don’t want to change with her around!” One of the girls was whispering._

_“What if she looks at my boobs?” Another said back, not bothering to quiet her voice. “It’s gross! It’s like having a boy in here.”_

_“I’m telling my mum…”_

_Yaz went to her locker and started changing, keeping her eyes straight forward and her chin high. She wasn’t going to let them bother her._

_There was an ahem from behind her, and she turned around. Lizzie Spencer, certified mean girl, was standing there, her arms folded and a mocking look on her face. “I heard you came out as a lesbian, that’s great, congratulations!” Her voice was sickeningly sweet. “You’re family must have taken it hard, though, right? Since you’re muslim and all. They must be so ashamed of you. Aren’t you ashamed?”_

_Yasmin stood up, standing eye-to-eye with Lizzie, standing eye-to-eye with the Grief Monster. “You’re wrong.” She told them. “I’m not ashamed. I’ve never been ashamed of who I am.”_

———

By the time the Doctor had managed to get the door open, the Grief Monster was lying in pieces on the ground, it’s machinery sizzling like it had imploded in on itself. Yaz was crouched next to it, examining the ‘head’, blood smeared on her face like she’d wiped away a nosebleed. She looked up at the Doctor and all of the tension fell out of her body. 

They hugged each other. But the Doctor pulled back, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but what the hell was that thing?”

“Grief Beast. They show you the things in your past that you hate, until the grief kills you, but we’ve don’t got a lot of time, Graham is still with those things.”

Ryan grabbed the Doctor’s arm as she started to run out of the room. “What about Susi?” 

“She doesn’t have a past, which means that they’ll have nothing to show her. She’ll be fine, at least until we get Graham out.” She hoped. 

Yaz stood in front of the door. “Are you sure?”

The Doctor wasn’t. “I can only help one at a time, and with present evidence, Graham is the one that needs me the most.” She saw how worried Yaz was, and her voice gentled. “Don’t worry. Susi will be okay.”

———

Susi wasn’t okay. The images they showed her were horrible, people dying, monsters attacking, her destroying whole cities, tearing universes apart. _World killer…_ The monsters whispered at her. _Are you afraid of the big bad wolf?_

She screamed, her skin felt like it was on fire. Her heart beat faltered. Her head pounded, and she could feel the blood streaming from her nose, her eyes, and her ears as she clutched at her skull, willing the pain away.

_You haven’t been human for a very long time._

“Stop it!” She yelled. “Stop it, make it stop!”

_What have you done?_

_I’m the big bad wolf. I’m the one with the sharp teeth. The better to eat you with, my dear._

_The bad wolf must die._

———

When they left the third room, with Graham’s barely-breathing body carried on their shoulders, they could hear screaming. Yaz and Ryan lowered Graham so that he was slumped against the side of the Tardis, and then ran to where the Doctor was frantically trying to open the fourth room’s door. “I don’t understand,” She said, horrified, flicking through the settings on the sonic with shaking hands. “I don’t understand. She doesn’t have memories, they don’t have anything to use against her-“

“They could show her anything, and she wouldn’t know any better if that isn’t true.” Ryan said, his voice nearly a whisper. “They could tell her she was a monster.”

The Doctor and Yaz gave each other a horrified look, and finally the door sprung open. The Doctor threw the Sonic at Yaz. “Disable the Grief Beast. I’ll get Susi. Quick!”

What she saw when she ran through the door nearly stopped the hearts beating in her chest. Susi was lying on the floor, catatonic, her mouth opening and closing like she was trying to scream but didn’t have the energy to make the sound come out. Blood was streaming from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and her dark hair was plastered to the skin of her face, which was pinkish in hue, as if her sweat was tinged with blood. Under the pink, she was nearly so pale that her skin was grey.

Slowly, the Doctor crouched next to her, almost afraid to touch. She pulled Susi’s face towards her, feeling the pulse in her jaw at the same time. It was weak and fluttery, like it was barely working. She should be dead by now. The Doctor had no idea how she could still be alive.

“Hey,” She whispered, pulling Susi’s body onto her knees. She wiped the hair out of Susi’s face. There was so much fear, but it wasn’t Susi’s. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.”

Susi didn’t even look at her, her dark eyes stared past, filled with thousands of years of pain. “You can’t know that.”

The Doctor could feel the Grief Beast implode in on itself from behind her. A second later, Yaz was on Susi’s other side, gripping one of the other girl’s limp hands. “Yes I do.” The Doctor whispered. “Because I know you.” Her eye’s caught the watch on Susi’s wrist. For some reason, it looked very familiar.

“No you don’t,” Susi’s voice was even quieter than before, like she was giving up.

The Doctor started putting it together. The exposure to the Time Vortex, the lost memories… And Jack’s watch. _Well, well._ He’d said. _It’s certainly nice to see you again_. It hadn’t been the Doctor he was talking to. She should have figured it out long ago. Paha, Susi. The Tardis didn't translate names. Paha Susi. Bad Wolf. “I _Know_ you.” She reached over and pulled the watch off of Susi’s wrist and held the face of it near Susi’s eyes. She fiddled with the edge of the glass, popping it off. The glass fell to the ground, and gold started to pour out of it, into Susi’s eyes. “I know who you are, Rose Tyler.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trapped on a family trip with no wifi for the last week, so sorry for such a late update.


	9. Journeys End

“How can she be Rose Tyler?” Yaz gestured wildly towards where Susi was lying on the Tardis floor. They’d limped their way onboard, carrying Susi and Graham over their shoulders, and now with the Okay that they were safe, Yaz felt comfortable confronting the Doctor. “We’ve met Rose, and Susi looks nothing like her!”

“She must have regenerated.” The Doctor murmured, sitting about a meter from where Susi… Rose was. She would have sat closer, but the Tardis wouldn’t let her. Every time she tried to reach out, it sent a hum of electricity through her body. “Remember when I said I used to be a white-haired Scotsman? Well… Rose must’ve…” _Rose_ … The Doctor trailed off.

“You said Rose was human!” Yaz’s whole body was practically vibrating with tension.

The Doctor didn’t say anything for a good long while before she stood. She moved slowly, like it hurt down in her bones. “She used to be.” 

“Used to be-?” 

“Is she gonna be okay?” Graham interrupted. “What’s she doing?”

“Healing coma.” The Doctor whispered. “Something Time Lords can do when we are severely injured, but not enough to need to regenerate. Our body temperatures drop below freezing and our heart rates will-“ She realized she was rambling and shut up.

“You can become a Time Lord?” Yaz asked, staring at the Doctor. Her arms were folded, but her heart was in her eyes.

The Doctor couldn’t look at her. “No. It was a one-time deal. The circumstances in which Rose became a Time Lord would be impossible to replicate. And even the way it was… She barely survived it at all.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Yaz.”

———

It had been hours with no sign of Rose waking. The group had eventually calmed down, though maybe that was the wrong word. It was more like they were exhausted from the events that had gone on earlier. Graham had gotten the all-clear from the Tardis’s scanners, and he’d gone to bed, as well as Ryan, who still wanted to keep an eye on his grandad and make sure that he was really okay.

Yaz had left to take a shower and change into clothes that weren’t covered in blood, and when she came back to the control room, the Doctor was still there, continuing her vigil. Yaz watched for a while before giving in. “Okay.” She said, settling next to where the Doctor stood leaning against one of the rails. “I’m not mad.” The Doctor gave her a look. “I’m not! Really. If you think that Susi is Rose then… Well, can you just explain it to me how that’s possible? Cause you kind of lead me to believe that she was human and that she died a long time ago.”

“I didn’t lie to you on purpose.” The Doctor said, rubbing at her neck. “She was human when I met her. One day, things were looking pretty grim and I had to send her away to keep her safe. Should’ve known nothing would stop her…” She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy one. “She cracked open the Tardis and looked into the Time Vortex. It brought her back to me but… It was killing her. You can’t have that kind of power without consequences. I near died taking it out of her. Thousand years later, I still don’t know how I survived it.

…Maybe it’s cause I didn’t get all of it out of her. I missed something, and that little piece of the Time Vortex grew and grew, slowly turning her into a Time Lord. But then she died.” For a second, the Doctor’s eyes looked hollow. “She was able to regenerate but It was before she could make the transition all the way, she got stuck halfway, and… I found out you can’t be human and Time Lord. It kills you. She would have died, and it would have been permanent. I… the person I used to be… He couldn’t stand the thought of her dying, so he… I stole her memories and all the bits of her that were Time Lord and trapped them in a locket, and then put her in an alternate universe where she should have been safe. She should have lived a human life, the one that she was always meant to have.”

Yaz stared. “Doctor…”

She gave a bitter smile. “I know. After what I did, she might want to kill me. Can’t say I’d blame her.”

A voice spoke up from the other side of the control room. “Kill you? No.” They both turned, and Susi looked at the Doctor with eyes that Yaz didn’t recognize. Rose Tyler’s eyes. “But we do need to talk.”

———

Rose stood inside her old room, stretching her neck. Her body still hurt from the Grief Beast’s attack, but she could tell that the damage was repairing itself. That said, she was perfectly fine enough to take a walk around.

Maybe it was the regeneration, or maybe it was that she had been living an alternate life rather than taking time to adjust to the new person she’d become, but it felt almost like there were two people inside of her. Rose Tyler, the Time Lord with so much anger and grief and pain. And Susi, a scared human with no idea who she was.

When she looked at the Doctor, she saw both with Rose Tyler’s eyes and Susi’s. Her memories of the Doctor when she was Susi felt more like Deja Vu or a dream then something she had actually experienced. “Does it go away?” She asked abruptly, the first thing she had actually said to the Doctor since they’d gone away to talk. “The feeling like I’m two different people?”

The Doctor startled. “Eventually. Yeah, the person you were and the person you are now will come to terms with each other. In my experience it’s easier to adjust if you don’t have any regrets from the life before.”

Rose’s voice got dark. “Any regrets?” She asked.

“More than I can count.” The Doctor looked her right in her eyes. “Rose… I have spent the last thousand years regretting what I did to you, I would never do anything like that again, I swear-“

Rose held up a hand. “Just… tell me you’re sorry.”

“I am. I’m sorry.”

She put her hand on the Doctor’s face. Thousands of years and who knows how many lives separated them, but the second the skin of her hand touched the Doctor’s face… It all melted away. For a moment, she was the spunky human kid she’d been when she first met the Doctor.

Rose broke into the most wonderful smile, accepting that honest regret completely. “Okay.”

The Doctor was bowled over by this, but before she could even blink Rose had pulled her into her arms. The Doctor closed her eyes, melting into the embrace. “Are you sure?” She asked, almost afraid to ruin it all, but she had to know.

Rose didn’t pull back, so the Doctor felt her let out a laugh. “I’ve had a long time to be angry with you, Doctor. Over a hundred years, or a few thousand if your counting the time I spent in the void-“ The Doctor tried to pull back at that in confusion, but Rose held tight. “One day I’ll tell you about it. About how I got back, and the things I’ve done since.” She finally let the Doctor go. “I’m not the same girl you used to know, and it isn’t just regeneration. You might not like the person I’ve become.”

The Doctor looked up into Rose’s eyes. She remembered that she had once been scared of what Susi might have been before loosing her memories. Judging by the look in Rose’s eyes, the darkness, the rage… Maybe she was right to be worried. The Doctor whispered. “You were there for me when I was at my darkest. I’ll be here for you at yours.”

———

Rose had been loathe to cut the conversation short, but they could have spent a thousand years talking, and the one person who she really needed to talk to didn’t have a thousand years to wait.

She was almost surprised that the door was open, or even that she could have found it at all. “Yaz?” She asked, giving a light knock on the door frame. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” The voice responded, though Rose couldn’t tell exactly how Yaz felt. 

She very slowly opened it all the way, and she saw Yaz sitting down at the long couch, a book in her lap that she didn’t look like she was actually reading at all. “Bad Wolf Conspiracy,” Yaz said, tapping the title. “Who’d have known? Well, you would, I suppose.” Right, that might have been a little bitter. “I don’t know what to call you. Susi? Rose? …Was it all a lie then? She just someone you made up?”

Rose’s hearts broke a little. “It wasn’t a lie. Susi, everything she… I said. It was real. Susi is as much me as Rose Tyler is.”

Yaz finally looked up at her, and seeing Rose’s face and watching her friends face look back at her… She deflated. “This is just so weird for me.” She finally said, exasperated. Rose sat down on the couch next to her. “I always thought of Rose Tyler as this sort of idealized martyr that the Doctor used to be in love with… Only to find out that she’s been living inside of my friend’s head this whole time. It’s bonkers.”

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have lied to you on purpose.”

“It’s just…” Yaz gave a humorless laugh. “Your the love of my life’s love of her life…”

“I’m not going to ask her to choose me.” Rose said abruptly. “It’s been so long, I don’t even know if it’s possible for us to start over again. Or if I want us to. And believe it or not Yaz, I care about you, too.”

Yaz stared. “I believe you.” She sighed. “I’m not gonna ask her to make a choice, either. Doesn’t seem fair.”

Rose bumped her shoulder into Yaz’s. “Still friends?”

Yaz bumped back. “Still friends.”

———

Rose held the gun in her hands, staring down at the creature with a snarl. “I’m tired of things whose names end in ‘beast’ trying to kill me.” 

It hadn’t been their first adventure since finding out that Susi was Rose, but they’d still been testing each other, trying to see how dynamics had changed. Rose was having a hard time dealing with the way the others tended to stare at her. It irked her, which was especially weird, since she knew the person she’d been wouldn’t have been bothered by it. So, when the gang had split up to look around, she’d volunteered to go on her own.

Rose wasn’t an amateur, she’d found the monster immediately.

Another god-forsaken Time Beast.

It snarled back at her, it’s voice long since past human enough to be understood. Rose pointed the blaster right at the center of the things swirling mass. “I don’t want to kill you, you don’t want to die. You get one chance. Stop hurting people, get on with your business, or I will stop you.” It shrieked again, and she pulled the switch, listening to the hum of the blaster as it charged up. “You may think you can’t be killed, but I’ve killed another Time Beast before. Read the Vortex, you’ll know I’m telling you the truth. _Please_.”

There was a pause as the Time Beast looked, searching the Time Vortex for it’s lost brother. Of course, there was nothing for it to find. It quailed, giving something equivalent to a nod. It would stop.

Rose closed her eyes and let out a breath of relief. She really truly didn’t want to kill it. She opened her eyes, getting ready to lower the gun…

But that’s not what the Doctor saw when she came into the room. All she saw was a terrified creature, and Rose, with her gun pointed straight at it. “Rose!” She shouted, and both of them turned to look at her as she ran into the room. “Stop!”

Rose raised an eyebrow, and the Time Beast disappeared. She gave the Doctor an impassive look. “What? It had surrendered. I wasn’t gonna hurt it.”

She came to a halt, her mouth gaped open in horror. “You’re not Rose. You can’t be. Rose would never have pointed a gun-“

“Oh don’t act so sanctimonious!” Rose snapped. “As if you have never used a gun. You forget, Doctor, I know you!”

And just like that, they were in a proper fight. Didn’t even notice the rest of the group enter the room, though they stayed back, almost afraid of these two beings, absolutely alien in their anger. 

“I’ve changed, Rose, for the better! You were part of what changed me, and what about you, what the hell have you changed into? Who are you!”

Rose’s anger flared. “This is who I am, right here, right now, all right?! This is me!” She stepped forward, towering over the Doctor, who looked up into her eyes, defiantly. Yaz, all of a sudden very aware of the blaster that was still in Rose’s hands, moved forward, her heart beating out of her chest. “I am who you made me, remember? ‘You take ordinary people and you turn them into weapons.’” She dropped the blaster and it clanged loudly on the floor.

The Doctor looked like she’d been slapped. Rose’s voice didn’t gentle, but her hands were as she put them on either side of the Doctor’s face. “You want to know who I am?” 

Yaz’s stomach dropped. She was sure she was about to watch the woman she loved kiss another, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

But they didn’t kiss. Rose pressed her forehead against the Doctor’s. And for a moment, the Universe slowed.

———

———

———

_Run!_

_And what about you, Doctor? Who are you turning into?_

_I want you safe, My Doctor. Protected from the False god._

_My head, it’s killing me._

_How long did you know that you were changing, Rose?_

_———_

_How long are you gonna stay with me?_

_Forever._

_———_

_I’ll figure out how to get back. I’ll do it, I’ve got hundreds of years to figure it out._

_But you can survive, right? You can live indefinitely with one heart._

_Yes, but it hurts. More than you could possibly imagine._

_———_

_You need to warn the Doctor. Just two words. Bad Wolf._

_———_

_No, no. I just got you back._

_How many have died in your name?_

_You can’t start human and get stuck halfway without consequences,_

_I have a way to save you, a way to save both of you._

_But you’ll have to forget me._

_———_

_I think I want to be a Doctor._

_———_

_very very slowly, she started to pry the locket apart…_

_She looked at John, and all she could think was that it was the wrong face._

_She’d forgotten something about herself._

_I am the what?_

_Bad Wolf._

_It wasn’t your choice to make!_

———

Thousands of years in the void. The yawning endlessness, alone.

———

_I need your face. It makes a statement. Do I have your permission?_

_Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?_

_———_

_It’s time to go home, Rose Tyler._

_Do you want him snuffed out of existence entirely, nothing but a memory for you to look back on? Would that fill your belly with revenge, World-Killer?_

_Do not let the Doctor see you until then._

_It’s in your name, Bad Wolf._

_———_

_Would have visited you if I could, trust me._

_What did he do?_

_I’ve got a party to attend._

_Maybe it’s time you went home._

_I bet you’re gonna have a really great year._

_You leave broken people behind everywhere you go._

_I made the choice, because no one else could. It’s what I always do! Make the choice!_

———

Burning on the pyre.

———

_What happened to the boy?_

_If you don’t stop, I will stop you._

_All moments existing as one perfect point._

_I see your future, I know what you desire. The Doctor. You will die before the Doctor ever sees you again. They will not even recognize your corpse._

_The better to eat you with my dear._

_I am one of the most dangerous weapons in the universe, you are another._

_———_

_The bad wolf must die._

_———_

_I’m going to see the Doctor again._

———

———

———

 

The Doctor pulled away. Rose’s memories swimming around her head. They hurt. An actual physical pain, rattling around her skull. Her right heart struggled to beat. Burning in her legs. A sharp stabbing in her chest. She hadn’t just given her memories, she’d given her feelings.

Beauty. Loneliness. Divinity. Betrayal. Hatred. Love. Pain.

Pain pain pain pain.

The Doctor opened her eyes, she could feel snot and tears running down her face, and she tasted salt on her lips. The tears that Time Lords generated didn’t taste like salt. These were human.

Rose was staring down at her, and the Doctor almost laughed. Things change. She lifted her arms and put her hands on Rose’s face, mirroring what Rose had done. A thousand years ago, she was so full of grief and anger, and a silly pink and yellow human, full of kindness and courage had saved her from herself. Now the situations were reversed.

She would save Rose, no matter the cost. “We change,” The Doctor whispered.

Those cold dark eyes widened for a moment. And her voice was hoarse, like she’d forgotten how to speak. “But feelings stay.”

———

Yaz was walking side-by-side with Rose down a hallway that was pulsing a very gentle blue colour. It had been nearly three months since Rose had ‘come back’, and after the debacle with the Time Beast, the rest of the gang were very careful to make sure that there was at least one of them with her whenever they split up to take a look around. Tempers may have cooled, but none of them could forget the way it felt when they realized that Rose and the Doctor weren’t just anatomically different, that they actually were _alien_.

And to be honest, none of them wanted to be reminded of it again. So they kept a watchful eye on both of them. 

Despite all of this, Yaz and Rose were still actually maintaining a good friendship. Yaz had been so very terrified that things would change between her and the Doctor, but Rose had kept her promise. She hadn’t asked the Doctor to choose her.

Yaz loved her dearly for that.

“What do you think this place is?” Yaz asked, running her fingers along the wall. The light shimmered and changed as her hand brushed it, like it was responding to her body temperature. “A space ship?”

“Maybe,” Rose said, and seeing what Yaz was doing, went to do the same. For her, the light didn’t change, which proved Yaz’s theory. Time Lords had a much lower body temperature than humans. “Though I don’t feel any engines going. So it’s either parked or decommissioned. Might be some sort of hospital.”

“Yeah, has that sort of feel, doesn’t it?” Yaz murmured. She spotted something ahead, maybe a door. “Rose,” She pointed, and they walked over to it. Just next to the door was a glass screen, glowing a steady blue, same as the walls. “It’s one of those hand-scanners. Think I should?”

Rose grinned. “The Doctor would.”

Yaz grinned back, but when she put her hand on the screen, nothing happened. “Nothin,” She stepped back. “You wanna have a go at it?”

“If it didn’t work for you, it probably won-“ Rose rolled her eyes as the door slid open. “Or it’ll just make a liar out of me. After you.” She gestured grandly, making Yaz giggle.

The room they stepped into looked like the waiting area of a hospital, minus the chairs. The lights were brighter in here, but not unbearable. On one end was another door, and on the same wall as it, was a massive window, like a viewing area. The two of the peeked through the window, but it was just another room, completely blank with no furniture or lights, only illuminated by the the room they were currently in. “Keep expecting something to pop up at me,” Yaz said, using the flashlight from her phone to try to get a better look at the other room. “But there’s nothing. Kinda boring.”

There was a sudden whooshing noise, and they both yelped, spinning around. Rose stepped in front of Yaz and whipped something out of her pocket and pointed it at what made the noise.

“Is that a banana?” Yaz asked, dumbfounded.

Rose’s nose was scrunched up in annoyance, but her cheeks were dark with an embarrassed blush. She shoved it back into her coat. “Yes it is. I’m so gonna get her for that.”

“What?”

Rose opened her mouth to explain, but the alien that had scared them beat her to it. “Bananas are good,” It said, it’s voice light and airy with almost a welsh-sounding accent. “Good source of potassium.” 

Yaz saw Rose’s shoulders tense, but she couldn’t understand why. The alien that stood in front of them was anything but threatening. It was bald, it’s skin a pale lavender, to match the eyes, which were human except for their colour. It’s face and body were otherwise human, and despite the fact that it was clad elegantly in what looked like a ballgown, it radiated calm, almost maternal vibes.

Yaz thought belatedly as it approached them, that maybe the appearance was some sort of trap to make people unwary, but it’s voice was just as kind as it’s appearance when it spoke again. “Hello, my name is Faltencio of the Yvel Trosk. Are you here to help us?”

“Help with what, exactly?” Yaz asked.

Faltencio tilted it’s head at her and gave her a kind, if confused, smile. “Did you not get our distress signal? I thought that is why you are here.” It’s words were stilted, the way you talk when you’re speaking a language that you don’t quite know.

Yaz and Rose exchanged a look, and Rose relaxed almost imperceptibly. That would explain why the Tardis had been drawn to this strange place. It could never resist a good old-fashioned call for help. “How can we help?” Yaz asked. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

The alien sighed, and walked past them, towards the observation window for the other room. “There are few of us left. Our planet, Trosk, was rapidly becoming over populated, so my people, the Yvel, volunteered to take this ship and seek out another planet that we could survive on. But we have been on this mission for nearly two hundred years without finding a habitable planet. Our power supplies have dwindled to nearly nothing.” It looked at them. “Sacrifices have been made.”

All of the tension that had left Rose’s body promptly returned. “What kind of sacrifices?”

“We need a new power supply in order to continue,” Faltencio said, ignoring Rose. “Luckily you have brought one to us. And for that, we thank you.”

“The Tardis?” Yaz asked, horrified. But even as the words left her mouth, she remembered that the Tardis was impenetrable. They wouldn’t have been able to get to her power source if they tried for a thousand years.

“No,” It’s eyes turned to Rose. “You.”

All of a sudden, the lights in the other room flickered on. Yaz grabbed Rose’s hand as they both looked through the window. It was just a blank white room, nothing particularly interesting about it. 

Except for the man.

“No,” Rose whispered. And when Yaz turned to look at her, it wasn’t the Rose she was friends with, it was the one she’d first met. Short, blonde. An incredible amount of fear and pain in her face. She surged forward, towards the door, and Yaz narrowly caught her before she could grab the handle, which hadn’t been there before. “Doctor?” She said, her voice trembling, just narrowly not a shout.

“Doctor?” Yaz asked, looking up at the man. He seemed to have noticed them at the same time that they had seen him.

“Rose!” He rushed the door on the other side, pulling something from his pocket. When it caught the light, it was silver and blue and… Yaz’s breath left her chest. It looked like a Sonic. The Doctor’s Sonic. Except… He was tall, with bright blue eyes, big nose, even bigger ears.

Yaz was aware of regeneration, knew that Rose had done it, that the Doctor had done it. But this was the first time she’d had to deal with the reality of what it meant.

This was a Doctor she’d never known.  
“Doctor!” Rose struggled against Yaz’s grasp, desperately trying to get to the door. Had it been the Rose that Yaz was used to, Yaz wouldn’t have been able to hold her back, as her new regeneration was a good eight centimeters taller than Yaz, and designed to be a fighter. But this other Rose, the one in her arms was short and soft. And crying, with mascara lines trailing down her cheeks.

“Rose!” Yaz shouted. “Stop it! He can’t be real, you know the Doctor! Okay, she’s changed since then, she’s the real Doctor.”

“But this could be real,” Faltencio whispered from behind them, and Yaz turned to look. “You could let her live here, live out her endless years with this Doctor that she first loved, happy. You could let her go, and have your Doctor all to yourself. Is that not what you desire?”

Yaz paled. “Why are you doing this?”

“We were visited…” It’s head tilted, and it stared intensely at the struggling woman in Yaz’s arms. “By a Time Beast… One who has survived her. It informed us that as she once came in contact with the Time Vortex, which since it is eternal and all encompassing, she will always have a part of the Time Vortex inside her. Which means that she will act as a channel to the greatest source of power in this universe, allowing us to utilize her to power our ship for eons…”

“No.” Yaz whispered.

“Do you not want your love? Unburdened by memories of past heartaches?” The alien tilted its head, finally looking at her. “You could hold the Doctor’s heart.”

Yaz’s grip loosened, just for a second, as she looked at the other Doctor. He was fumbling with the sonic, looking at Rose through the glass, heart in his eyes. It was so easy to believe that he was real. That one second was enough, and Rose darted forward, her hand on the handle, turning it…

But Yaz swept her into her arms, dragging her backward and away. “No, no no.” Rose cried, beating her fists against Yaz as she was pulled out of the room. “I can’t leave him! I’m not leaving him!” 

But Yaz ignored her cries, ignored the cries of the illusion as he called out for Rose. She closed her eyes, and she felt the door shut behind them. Only once she was sure it was safe did she open them again, and there was her Rose, the same as she was before, except she was sobbing, clutching onto Yaz’s jacket.

She started to collapse, and Yaz slowed her, so they slid down the wall together. “Shh,” Yaz whispered, smoothing down Rose’s dark hair as Rose cried into her neck. “It’s gonna be okay… I’m here. It’s all right.” Even as she said that, she wasn’t quite sure. Faltencio was still somewhere in that other room, and who knows how many other allies she had on this ship. They were far from out of danger.

“Yaz? Rose?” Ryan’s voice called out, and when Yaz turned, she saw him, Graham, and the Doctor sprinting towards them. “What happened?”

Yaz stood up, taking Rose with her. “Nothing. We need to get out of here.” She met the Doctor’s eyes. “Now.”

———

Once on board the Tardis, Rose crossed her arms, once again cool and collected, and looked at the Doctor. “I need to see Jack.”

Her voice was so stern that it brooked no argument, and no one said anything as the Tardis crashed through time and space, or even once it landed. “Do you want us to come with you?” Graham asked finally as she stepped out of the door.

She turned and gave them all an unreadable smile. “No, this is a conversation I need to have alone. But thank you.”

———

Rose walked down the hallway leading to the heart of Torchwood, the memories of who she was long ago, and the memories of Susi, walked with her. She looked through their eyes as much as her own as she stepped through the building, ignoring the techs that she didn’t know, who skittered out of her way. 

Jack must have done a lot of hiring after she had left, she thought.

When the big room opened up in front of her, she scanned the room, took in faces that she recognized and ones that she didn’t. “Where is he?” She asked one that she knew, but at the wary stare in his eyes, she belatedly remembered that he wouldn’t know her new face. “Wyatt?” She added, raising her eyebrows at him.

It took him a second. “Rose?” He asked, his eyes flickering down to the watch on her wrist, and a big grin split his face. “Hey, long time no see, kid. Like the new face, it looks good on you.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Guys, simmer down, it’s Rose!” Wyatt announced happily to the others, who had formed a loose circle around them, a few with hands on their weapons. The ones that had known her before stepped down immediately, the other ones took a bit longer.

“Nice to see you, too, Wyatt.” She smiled back. “How long’s it been?”

“Bout two years,” He said after thinking about it. “Not all that long, really. But… Well, you’re not here for me are ya? Jack’ll be back in just a bit. Went out to grab everybody coffees. Why don’t you wait in his office for him? I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

“Right,” She said, giving him a nod before making her way to Jack’s office. It was a lot less organized then she remembered, filled with odd knick knacks that hadn’t been there before, his ‘active mission’ pile was stacked up on his desk so high that it nearly reached the top of her head. Idly, she leafed through a couple of the open files on his desk, noting that alien and other supernatural appearances had skyrocketed in the last few years.

“Hey,” A voice said from behind, and Rose spun. Jack leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. “Think you can just come in here and rummage through classified information?” His voice was stern, but Rose saw the corner of his mouth twitch just a little bit.

“Nice to see you too, Jack.” Rose said, a big smile on her face.

After a beat, Jack grinned back, and with a laugh, they threw themselves at each other in a massive, spinning hug. “Welcome home, Miss Tyler.” He said, letting her go so he could have a good look at her. “Didn’t get a chance to say the last time I saw you, but I love the new look. Tall dark and dangerous.” He wiggled his eyebrows, making her giggle. “Sexy. How’d it go with the Doctor?”

“Decent,” Rose sat in the Captain’s chair and spun around in it. “Once I got my memories back, thank you for that by the way, here’s your watch.” She took it off and handed it to him. “But it’s been weird, for one, the Doctor doesn’t really appreciate the new me’s philosophy of do-what-needs-to-be-done,” Jack gave a nod. He was well familiar with the Doctor’s self-righteous tendencies. “Also, she’s completely smitten with Yaz. You remember her?”

He grinned. “Yep, I remember. You got yourself in a love triangle?”

“No,” Rose shook her head. “We’re adults. We’re not doing that sort of thing. Besides, Yaz is my friend.”

“Ah. I remember, you and the Doctor used to call each other ‘friends’.”

“Oh don’t go there,” She warned, shaking her finger at him.

“Hard not being the sole object of the Doctor’s affections, yeah?”

“Mm. It’s definitely different.” She paused. “But enough about me, what’s been going on with you?”

He grinned. “Well, since you up and left me on my own in the middle of an alien invasion, we’ve been up to our eyeballs in sightings, both real and fake. I’ve had a hell of a time sorting between kids with weather balloons and actual contact. Plus now we’re the officially unofficial delegates between the UK and the Galgamorians, so I’ve had to bring on a whole crew of more ‘diplomatic’ types.”

“Ah. The kind who’ve never thrown a punch in their lives, let alone shot a blaster?”

“Training’s been it’s own special circle of hell.”

Rose laughed, but suddenly remembered what she had come here to do, and her face became serious. “Unfortunately Jack, I didn’t come here just to catch up.” She stood up and closed the door so they were alone without any prying eyes. “We need to talk.”

———

Rose was grim when she stepped back on board the Tardis, and she met the eyes of the rest of the gang. “You alright?” Ryan asked, looking like he was worried for her.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“What’d you want to talk to him about?” Graham asked, and the Doctor shot him a warning look, and opened her mouth like she was gonna say something-

“No, it’s fine.” Rose held up her hand. “It’s just, that the Yvel Trosk said something that made me think. It said that since I once accessed the Time Vortex, and since every single moment is always happening in the Time Vortex, I thought that maybe that would mean that I’m pretty much always accessing the Time Vortex. Why I can kill Time Beasts.” For a brief second, she met the Doctor’s eyes, but she couldn’t hold the gaze for long. “But… It would also mean that anything I did when I had the Time Vortex swimming in my head, I could do again.”

“Oh,” The Doctor whispered, understanding where she was going.

“And if I know how to do something, I could undo it, too.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Which means… I had to tell Jack that I knew how to fix him.”

“Did he…” The Doctor swallowed. “Did he ask you to make him mortal again?”

The mask cracked, and Rose slowly smiled until it lit up her eyes. “He told me that, and I’m quoting him on this, he ‘once said I was worth dying for, and that I’m also worth living for’. At least for now.” It was maybe, the Doctor thought, the first time she had seen Rose so happy since they had reunited. “But if he ever finds someone that he would like to age for, and die with, I’ll be here for him.”

“But…” Rose scuffed the floor with her boot. The Tardis sent her a rush of… Something supportive through her. “I can also make someone immortal. Like what I did with Jack the first time, except now it would be on purpose.”

A pin drop could have been heard.

“Not me, eh?” Graham said. “No offense, but I’d like to see Grace again, one day.”

Before Rose could say anything, Ryan piped up. “Me either. ’s just not something I’ve ever wanted.”

Rose nodded at them and smiled. But when she turned to Yaz, she wasn’t looking at her, she was looking at the Doctor. “Doctor?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor wasn’t looking at her, instead she met Rose’s eyes, and her gaze was grim. Rose could tell she didn’t really approve of this, changing fate. But, “It’s not my decision, Yaz.” She said, still looking at Rose. “It’s yours.”

Yaz turned, staring at Rose with half-wild eyes, suddenly overwhelmed. “I can’t- I need to think about this.” 

“Take your time.” Rose said gently. “You’ve literally got all the time in the world.”

———

Rose sat in her room, leafing through her little red book. _Bad Wolf_. She smiled. She could hardly believe it, that a thousand years ago the Tardis had given her her future. The gold gallifreyan script translated in front of her eyes as easy as if she were splitting warm butter with a knife, as opposed to when it had refused her because part of her was still human. 

It was a detailed history of the Time Lords, going farther back than Rose would think their memories could have, to the origins of their god, how they built their first cities. Rose was inclined to believe that the book was not actually written by the Time Lords, but rather by the Tardis.

Abruptly, she put the book down and slumped down against one of the bed poles until she was sitting on the floor. “And what do you think of this?” She asked, patting the floor.

A rush of emotions and all sorts of feelings hit her, shooting up through her hand like she’d touched something electrically charged. Affection, worry, friendship. Love. _Bad Wolf_. The Tardis whispered, and the door flung open.

Rose stood up, staring at the door. Through her feet, the Tardis urged her to move, showing her exactly where it wanted her to go. She may have hesitated a bit, but she started walking.

Slowly, as she moved down the corridor, the walls changed, peeling away like layers of paint, until it was a Tardis she recognized. Rough walls like sandpaper, glowing lights spaced evenly between pillars sticking up at an angle to the high ceiling. Rather than a solid floor, it was metal, with enough holes in it that she could see wires and circuitry running underneath it.

Rose’s heart was in her throat. This was the same Tardis that she had first stepped onto. Eventually, when the hallways started to split, she knew exactly where to go, muscle memory dragging her through the endless labyrinth.

Finally, she stood outside just a regular looking brown door, the kind you’d see in any normal persons flat. She closed her eyes, opened the door, and waited until she was inside until she opened them again.

Her eyes trained on the ground, she slid against the door until she was sitting against it, cross legged. The room was hardly more than a meter squared, with a ceiling that, she knew if she looked, would stretch up farther than she could see. 

Finally, she trained her gaze upwards, until she was looking directly into her eyes in the mirror.

Except, it wasn't the face that she’d gotten used to. It was the face she’d worn when she was human, blonde, upturned nose, so so young. The mascara-ringed eyes blinked at her, once, twice, and the third time, they blinked gold. The gold expanded, covering her reflection like a mask until it formed something distinctly wolf-like. Like the jackal heads on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The wolf’s head mask stared at her as much as she stared at it. Eventually she reached her hand up to her face, her real face, and pulled the mask off, watching it dissipate in her hands. When she looked up again, her new face had returned again.

She grinned, and the reflection grinned back, though its teeth may have been slightly more pointed. _The better to eat you with_. The Tardis whispered in her own voice, teasing her.

There was a knock at the door, and Rose stood up in a hurry, startled. When she opened it, she shielded the room from view with her body. She blinked, feeling the racing of her hearts slow just a little. “Yaz?” 

Yaz stood in front of her nervously, tapping her foot and practically vibrating with nerves. “Can we talk?”

———

They were in Yaz’s room, which was very strange for Rose, as she’d never been there before. It wasn’t like other’s rooms were off-limits, but it felt different in the Tardis, more vulnerable than it would have if they weren’t on a sentient ship. The room reflected a lot of who Yaz was, deep navy walls, plain but well made decor, lots of pictures of Yaz and her family, and over the bed frame she’d pinned a small rainbow flag.

Rose loved it.

“Right,” Yaz said, pacing back and forth. Slowly, Rose sat down on Yaz’s bed, watching her. “What exactly would it mean, being immortal? Would I be like you and the Doctor, a Time Lord?”

“No,” Rose shook her head. “the whole Time Lord thing was a complete accident. Impossible to replicate. Besides, Time Lords aren’t actually immortal. You’d be like Jack, unable to age or die. You’ll become a fixed point in time.”

“And when a person is a fixed point? What happens then?”

“Any moment you step into the timeline, it becomes fixed. Like if you were to be there at… I dunno, Hiroshima, then the bombing of Hiroshima could never be changed, no matter what any time traveller tried to do.”

“Crap,” Yaz said, and she plopped herself down on the bed next to Rose. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“Yeah, it is.” Rose hesitated. “But… If you’re human, you’ve only got so many years to love the Doctor and for her to love you back. You could spend the rest of your life with her, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with you.” She very subtly wiped at her eyes. “And she deserves to spend her many years with someone like you. Kind and good.”

Yaz stared. “Rose…” 

“It’s true.” Rose smiled at her. “I remember, with Faltencio. You could have left me behind, but you didn’t. You’re amazing, Yaz.”

“So are you” Yaz put a hand on Rose’s cheek. “You’re my friend Rose, I love you.”

“‘love you, too, Yaz.” Rose grinned. But it slipped away as something dawned on her. “We change, but feelings stay.”

“What?”

Rose sprung up, excited. Now it was her that was pacing the room. “I’m dense! Of course! Yaz, once a Time Lord feels love for another, that love becomes an actual part of them. A Time Lord’s personality may change, but who they are as a person never does. We assumed that she would have to make a choice, but she doesn’t!” She grinned. “She loves _us_.”

“So that means…” Yaz processed it for a second. “No one’ll be hurt. No one’s heart needs to be broken.” Her face broke out into a brilliant smile. “She’s gonna love that.” Yaz stood up. “I’ll be right back!”

Hardly more than a minute later, she came back into the room, the Doctor in tow, pulled by her hand, looking like she had no idea what was going on. “What is it?” She asked, positively startled.

“I’ve made my choice.” Yaz smiled. “Just this once, everyone is gonna get a happily ever after.” She turned to Rose. “Do it.”

———

———

———

Tucked away in the depths of the Tardis library, there’s a little red book, written in the ancient language of the Time Lords, from the very beginning of their species, but this book doesn’t have an end. Because so long as the Doctor, the Bad Wolf, and Yazmin Khan walk the Universe, the Time Lords will never die.


End file.
